Happy new year 🎊! Even though my holiday vacation felt short, I am excited to accomplish the goals I’ve set for 2022. My wife and I will start looking to buy our first home and adopt a second cat. Professionally, I will learn how to scale backend systems and invest more in my network. What are you excited to accomplish this year?

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Software Engineering ⚙️

Where do you put spacing on design system components?

I wondered why more websites don’t use spacer divs to manage their margins. The author compares it to the old table-based layout, which instantly made me realize spacer divs add clutters with no semantic meanings.

Patch fixing critical Log4J 0-day has its own vulnerability that’s under exploit

This issue is already fixed but serves as a good reminder that security is a never-ending issue.

People ❤️

Navigating Your Career Towards Your Own Definition of Success

I feel stuck when a decision is not a two-way-door decision and involves much uncertainty. Such choices are whether to buy a home, pursue a specific career, and so on. I can see that there are times when I need to take that leap of faith, but I am still scared.

Five takeaways from looking for a new senior role in tech

The author defines “senior” as the following in this article:

executive roles for small companies (I would say fewer than 50 engineers) or Vice President of Engineering and above for mid-sized (say 50-500 engineers), or Director and above for larger organizations (500+).

I enjoyed reading about how job searching is like at this level.

Business 💰

IEEE Spectrum’s biggest semiconductor headlines of 2021

We never worried about new cars’ or Xbox’s availabilities before COVID. Now, money can’t buy these things due to chip shortages. That’s just one of the many ways how semiconductor industry impacted our lives in 2021.

NYC Just Passed a Law Requiring Employers to Post Salary Ranges in Job Ads. There’s Actually an Upside

There is a similar law in Colorado, but this law is a bit more limited in scope. This law only applies to roles in NYC employed by employers in NYC. I wonder if some companies will move their HQs to avoid following this law.

Interesting Finds 💡

Mise en Place Writing

Writing more is such a difficult thing to do. The author suggests separating generating ideas (he calls it “pre-writing”) from writing itself. I am going to give that a go this year.

The Return of the Urban Firestorm

A fire burnt down more than a thousand homes last week in Colorado. A climate scientist talks about how we all try to find a haven from the changing climate when there isn’t any.