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Reader Question Round-Up: Upwork, Scaling, and Taking a Big Margin

After my hiatus, I’m back with my fourth consecutive week of content.  This time, it’s another reader question round-up, video edition.

I’m going to continue with the theme from last time, which is to use round-up posts to do picks and the digests that I’d been doing historically.  I’d also like to encourage anyone to ask me questions because, as I’ve mentioned a few times now, I’m going to let your questions drive the majority of my content going forward.

They can be questions about anything you’d like, really.  But my main focus is going to be on topics related to software careers and helping you understand the business of automation.

You can fire questions at me in the comments on the blog, Twitter, comments on Youtube, or really wherever you want.  Though, if anyone’s interested in proposing sort of a more effective or efficient way for me to get questions, I’m interested to hear it.

Picks

  • If you’ve never had occasion to check it out, I’d give the Tropical MBA podcast a listen.  The name gives a different impression of it than what it really is, with a kind of “too good to be true vibe.”  It’s actually a lot of practical advice for digital entrepreneurs, with a bit of a location-independent flavoring.
  • My wife and I have been watching this series of Youtube videos called “Pitch Meeting.”  If you like snarky humor pointing out plot holes, you’ll like these.
  • We spent the weekend in Cincinnati, and one of the things we did there was pop in for a little casual axe throwing.  Yes, there’s a place called Urban Axes where you learn to throw axes at targets and then have a lot of fun doing that for an hour or two.  They have locations in various US cities, and it’s a LOT of fun, so check it out if there’s one near you.

The Digest

The Reader Question Round-Up

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Reader Question Round-Up: Approaching Execs, Micromanagers, and Scaling without Job Interviews

I’ve fallen off a bit with creating video content.  But don’t worry; I recently remedied that.

We left the Florida Keys, stopped in Raleigh for 10 days or so, and finally landed back in Michigan.  But, upon returning, it wasn’t as simple as setting up the ol’ boom mic and tripod and letting ‘er rip.  We returned to a house in a state of flux.

You see, before leaving for the winter, we’d sold our former primary residence and basically just dumped a lot of that stuff here and in storage.  So it was like returning to a house that was in the middle of a move.

But, fast forward a few weeks and I’m relatively settled.  The office looks office-y, and the aforementioned boom mic and tripod are ready to go.  So I’ll get back on the horse with video content.

This Week’s Round-Up

To start that trend, I tackle another four reader questions.  Those are as follows:

  1. 1:20 How to approach executives if you’re “scruffy and nerdy looking?”
  2. 5:43 How did we scale up Hit Subscribe without doing job interviews?
  3. 11:50 Is my manager a micromanager?
  4. 17:39 Can I keep my 401K after leaving the company?

This episode featured several topics that sent me into mild rant mode about organizational scale, realpolitik, and job interviews.  If you like that sort of thing, then you’ll like this video.  If not, well, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

One thing I’ve really come to understand over the last few years of professionally brokering content is that if the only reaction to your content is positive, it means you don’t have much reach.  The content game is about finding the audience that resonates with your message and not sweating the rest.  So, let’s do that.

And, before I link the video, let me offer the usual note about more reader questions.  As you can see, I’m actually committed to turning all of them around these days, so please feel free to hit me with more.  Comment below, comment on the Youtube video, DM me, email me — whatever.  I’ll get ’em in the backlog and get ’em answered.

 

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Reader Question Round-Up: TDD, Yagni, Expert Beginners and Efficiencers

I was just scrolling through the front page of DaedTech and realizing it’s been a really long time since I posted non-digest content.  I’d pardon you if you thought I’d given up software-related content altogether.

Don’t worry, though.  I haven’t.

What has actually happened in my life is this, over the last four weeks (including this one):

  1. Vacation
  2. DaedTech consulting (on top of Hit Subscribe)
  3. DaedTech consulting (on top of Hit Subscribe)
  4. Hit Subscribe client onsite visit

So basically, a vacation followed by an all-too-familiar situation where I work a full time job and then another part time job.  In that situation, I made a few conscious sacrifices, one of which was non-essential content production.

I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.

Easing Back in with a Round-Up Video

I am actually in the middle of that 4th week, so I’m not out of the woods just yet.  But I did get that content itch, so I figured I’d split the difference and do another video answering reader questions.  I hope to return with some normal, ranty blog posts before you know it.

Truth be told, I’m actually having a lot of fun with the Youtube videos and getting a lot more efficient at creating them.  And I’m plowing through my backlog at a workmanlike rate, with the oldest unanswered questions now less than a year old.

At this rate, I might get caught up at some point.

Anyway, here’s the question roster, including time-stamps.

  1. 1:02 How to Reconcile YAGNI and TDD?
  2. 5:27 How to Get Expert Beginners Learning Again?
  3. 8:52 Resources for Thinking Like a Programmer?
  4. 12:22 What Has Changed to Make the Efficiencer Path Easier to Follow?

And, below is a frame of the video.

By the way, four of these video round-ups in, you can probably see that I’m reasonably committed.  So, if you have a question you’d like to see me answer, either in video or post format, fire it my way: email, tweets, DMs, Slack messages, blog comments or Youtube comments.  Your choice — happy to log them in any format.

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Reader Question Round-Up: APIs, Your Own Business, and Discrimination

I seem to have settled into a pattern of alternating between video round-ups and written posts.  And, I’m good with that.

So let’s follow that pattern once again.

Over the weekend, I posed another Youtube video where I answered four more reader questions.  Here are those questions, as sort of a teaser.

  1. 00:01:14 Should you treat all of your code like an API?
  2. 00:03:21 How do you make sure everything you’re doing is legal when you start your new business?
  3. 00:07:06 What do you do when someone wants to invest in what you’re doing or buy you out?
  4. 00:11:53 What do you think of that Google Manifesto guy, James Damore?

Those timed links will take you to the specific question in the video.  But, you could always just watch the whole thing below.

Also, a quick thank you to those of you sending me new questions these days, and to those of you patient enough to wait for answers to old ones.  I was definitely remiss in my response time to these when I wanted to do a blog post for every question.

But I think this new format is helping encourage me to produce more response content and to get them answered more quickly.  And that, in turn, is leading to a new influx of questions.

Keep ’em coming!

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Reader Question Round Up: Micromanagers, Finding Work, and Entry Level Gigs

I’m now officially getting back into the content groove, I think.  Last week I wrote at length about the subject of pair programming.  And this week, I’m doing another reader question round-up.

I’m opting for the video format again for a couple of reasons.  First, because I’m frankly having fun with it.  And, second, because I think it works well for questions that I’d struggle to write a full length post about.

I know, I know.  That seems hard to believe.

But, seriously, things like “how do I find an entry level Java development job” don’t really inspire me to bang out 2,000 words.  And so they wind up just sitting in the backlog, gathering dust. I figure I might feel like writing about them later.

So I think this is a good compromise and a good way to do some topics justice.

This Week on the Round-Up

Now, without much further ado, I offer you a frame of the round-up.  If you’re interested, the topics I cover in this video are as follows.

  1. What do I do, as a consultant, when a line manager tries to micromanage me?
  2. Name some better ways to find work as a freelancer than just blasting out “hey, I’m free” to your network.
  3. How do you get a job as an entry level Java developer after getting your degree?
  4. How do you use Javascript for something that’s going to have to last a long time?

Give it a watch below, if you’re so inclined.  I included a couple of movie clips in this one for variety.  So kudos to anyone who gets the references.