I’ve talked to a director last week about my career goals and one piece of advice rang deep. He said, “Don’t trust the people who say that titles don’t matter. They say that because they’ve had the titles. You should do what you want.”

And another piece of advice he had: “You should write more.”

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Software Engineering ⚙️

npm audit: Broken by Design

When I used “npm audit” for the first time, I was glad to have it. I was going through the same daily motion of “npm install” but now was able to enjoy the security benefit of experts. I still think that, with sufficient education and experience, it’s not that hard to read through the alerts and fix the ones I need to care about. But I see Dan Abramov’s point that it’s daunting yet not right enough for the newcomers.

Islands Architecture

Server-side rendering is usually followed by hydrating to a single-page application. What if, instead of having only one hydration point after loading, we hydrate by interactive elements? That could improve the performance. The creators of Snowpack came up with a new static site builder, Astro, that follows this architecture.

People ❤️

My questions for prospective employers (Director/VP roles)

I fully recognize that if you really need that role, it would be difficult to ask some hard questions. But also remember that asking good questions shows the interviewers that you are serious about the role.

Despite the title of the article, there are some good questions for lower-level roles, especially the first two sections.

A Manager’s Guide to Holding Your Team Accountable

Holding someone accountable and being held accountable are both inherently uncomfortable. So our discomfort is not a reason to avoid accountability. Start with simple, and non-judgemental questions. When we ask judgemental questions, that’s a sign that we waited too long before the questions and started creating our internal narratives.

Business 💸

Introducing Culdesac

When I hear the word “startups,” I first think of tech startups, and maybe some IoT or Biotech companies. But I never expected a city-building startup. Having to drive a car through traffic is the worst but most people have to bear with it because our cities are built to be only livable with cars. This company is challenging that status quo.