Developer Tea

Four Questions for the Weekend

07 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Happy Saturday! In today's episode, we're asking four questions that cause us to pause and reflect in order to answer. 🧡 Leave a Review If you're e...

Breaking Your Own Rules Accelerates Bad Habit Formation

04 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Whenever you take action, there will be feedback. Today we're talking about when to break your own rules and solve a problem. There are functional rea...

Redefine Your Career Search Rules

02 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Searching for a job is hard for both the people looking for a new job and a company looking for the perfect candidate to fill a position. In today's ...

Functional Autonomy and Finding Meaning in the Small Things Today

28 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Think about the mundane tasks that you're going through today. In today's episode we're talking about finding joy in even the small things that we do ...

Your Influence is Catalyzed By What is Influencing You

26 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Studies show strong-willed friends, greatly influence your choices. In today's episode, we're talking about the experiences and relationships that inf...

Your Time is An Account With An Unknown Balance

25 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Today we're talking about time as a resource of abundance. We'll cover self-care as an investment, work as something that you can enjoy more consisten...

Don't Make the Problem Fit the Model

21 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

A model is not the pure picture of the truth. If we think about road maps as we use them today, they are almost always slightly out of date. In what ...

Implicit Models and Processes

19 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

We often hear the term, "process", and this carries a lot of baggage. It's easy to believe that processes are one concept that we apply to s...

Measuring Freedom to Change

17 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The freedom we want to create as managers is the freedom to disagree and solve problems towards a goal. In today's episode we're talking about freedo...

Embracing Confusion

14 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

What does it mean to be confused? In today's episode, we're talking about confusion and how we manage and learn from points of professional confusion....

Thought Experiment - Rejecting Your Intuitive Solution

12 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Take a problem that you expect to face - one that you haven't solved yet or taken action on but have an ideal of how you would take action. Today's th...

You Don't Have to Be a Slave to Self-Improvement

10 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

When we allow surrounding cultures to drive our goals, we fall back to the systems and goals that the people around us have created. Where do our goal...

Getting Stacked Value From your Daily Activities

07 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The amount of time in a day is the same but the amount of margin you have in your day can vary. In today's episode, we're talking about some heuristic...

Defining Your Reference Points

05 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

When was the last time you asked a question in a meeting? Questions are an invitation to collaboration, especially in our jobs as developers. In today...

Engineering Your Habits Like Interfaces

03 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In today's episode we're talking about the idea of interfaces as some kind of expected way to interact with our code and how to take that frame of min...

Plans Should Be Functions, Not Documents

31 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

We expect things to go one way, but often, they go in another way. In today's episode, we're talking about plans and how to stay agile when the plans ...

What Are your Fundamentals?

29 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a developer is to overcomplicate whatever you're doing. This comes all the way down to every line of code ...

Getting On The Right Level When Solving Problems Collaboratively

27 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Often as a developer you'll find yourself either too far in the weeds of solving a problem or too far up in the clouds. In today's episode, we're tal...

Management Anti-Pattern - Detail Abstraction

24 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The anti-patterns we are talking about today are details. Who manages the details and when is management getting too involved or not getting involved ...

Management Anti-Patterns - False Homogeneity

22 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Focus is perhaps the one superpower that's common in successful people. In today's episode, we're talking about a management anti-pattern that totally...

Management Anti-Patterns - Implicit Assignment of Responsibility

20 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

There are so many ways to be wrong as a manager and this week, we're talking about management anti-patterns. One thing we all do is assign responsibil...

Two Biases that Can Affect Your Work and Relationships

17 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

We carry our minds with us through our careers. Our perceptions of the world around us are based on our biases or predispositions. In today's episode ...

You'll Never Have All of the Information

16 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Today, we're talking about gathering information as part of the developer's job. We'll dive into what it means to use the information we have to trans...

Productivity Isn't About How Much You Get done

13 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Productivity is an endless hill. How can you increase the output of you or your team as an engineer? In today's episode, we're zooming out to explore ...

3 Guidelines for Happier Work with Designers

10 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Clarity is hard to find when things are ambiguous. In today's episode, we're talking about solutions in uncharted territories and coming to conclusion...

Connecting Tasks to Operating Modes

09 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The work that you do and actions you take have outcomes. In today's episode, we're talking about finding better outputs through the actions and effort...

Success and Cumulative Advantage

06 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

What are the common systems of successful people? In today's episode, we're talking about the common systems of successful people, and how we could in...

A Key Misconception About Resolutions

03 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Happy New Year to everyone listening to this show! In today's episode we're focusing on automating as much of our daily life as we can and one misconc...

Holiday Re-Air: Interview w/ Gabriel Weinberg (part 2)

27 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Today's guest, Gabriel Weinberg, the CEO of DuckDuckGo uses connections to help steer the company. What we're talking about today with Gabriel are men...

Holiday Re-Air: Interview w/ Gabriel Weinberg

23 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Today's guest, Gabriel Weinberg, the CEO of DuckDuckGo uses connections to help steer the company. What we're talking about today with Gabriel are men...

Simplifying

20 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

This is the last episode of the 2019 year, and like most people spending time with family and preparing for the upcoming year, we're thinking about go...

What We Do With a Lack of Information

18 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What exactly does it mean to forget? In today's episode we're talking about perspective. Most of what we experience in our day-to-day will eventually ...

Disagreeing Better, On Purpose

16 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Imagine you're running a team. As a manager, you're setting up the processes and expectations among your team. What are the organizational responsibil...

Two More Guidelines for Better Feedback Loops (Part Three)

13 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Developers tend to create process for themselves and a shared process with a team, but what defines whether or not a process is useful? In today's epi...

Two Guidelines for Better Feedback Loops (Part Two)

11 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Take a moment and imagine three or four days ago. Replay a mundane event, like your commute. Imagine each movement and turn you need to make to arrive...

Better Feedback Loops (Part One) - Validation and Cycle Time

09 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

We are embarking on the end of the decade. January 1st, 2020 marks a new decade and this means a lot of people are reflecting on the past decade. Spec...

Justifying Feature Work with User Roles and Motivations

06 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In today's episode of Developer Tea, we're talking about wasting time on features we hope are useful, but turn out not to be. We can't control for eve...

Hypocognition and the Importance of Concepts

04 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Imagine for a moment that you don't have a concept for what a podcast is. In today's episode, we're talking about shared concepts and the ideas that c...

Colliding Titles and Roles

02 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Titles for developers are meant to quickly describe our function we play on a team and allow us to set expectations. Where this can go wrong is when w...

Managing Requests, Making Commitments

29 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Requests are tied to expectations. In today's episode, we're talking about managing overload of requests and managing expectations so we can focus on...

The Benefit of Our Predecessors

27 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

If you were born one year earlier, something would likely have changed in your life. In today's episode, we're taking a moment to express a bit of gra...

The Illusion of Balancing Priorities

25 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

If a team agrees to a set of goals and values, then our priorities should align, yet it too often falls on individuals to negotiate their priorities w...

Commit To Actions, Measure Outcomes

22 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

How do we end up in a place where our responsibilities and commitments outrun our cognitive ability to fulfill them? In today's episode of Developer T...

Check Your Leverage

20 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Your words have power. They can influence the people around you. Your words matter. In today's episode, we're talking about what our words mean to our...

Meetings Can Trick Your Emotions

18 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Meetings are often times the only chance to have a face-to-face conversations with your co-workers and can occasionally end in good feelings that only...

Preserving Subcultural Language

16 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Vocabulary is the basis of language and unique cultural meaning. Developers share a common code and have created their own vocabulary and language ove...

Different Behaviors with the Same Values - Practicing Modes

13 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Hopefully the last episode about modifier functions and behaviors helped spark and idea of how you might change small behaviors and cascade that into ...

How Small Behaviors Cascade into Life-Changing Results

11 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Context is a big deal in the job of a developer. In today's episode, we're applying a zoomed out model of thinking to everyday behavior to make us bet...

Focusing On Improving One Value At A Time

08 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

If you were to list your values today, it's likely that the list is not simple. There's a lot to understand when we try to explain what we think and o...

Tracing Chained Motivations

06 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What causes us to do the things we do? In today's episode, we're discussing the complexity of motivations and identifying the chains of motivations i...

Productivity In The Face of Ambiguity with Functional Assumptions

04 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Senior engineers will often answer questions by peers starting with, "It Depends." In today's episode, we're talking about getting beyond th...

Ask Better Questions

01 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

We've talked a lot about questions on this show. Questions are a powerful tool for developers and our collaboration. In today's episode, we're talking...

Interview with Anil Dash (Part 2)

30 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Anil is the CEO of Glitch, an activist, writer and host of the podcast, Function. In today's episode, we sit down with Anil to talk about animating m...

Interview with Anil Dash (Part 1)

28 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Anil is the CEO of Glitch. He's an activist, writer and host of the podcast, Function. In today's episode, we sit down with Anil to talk about the or...

Seeking a Disconnected Perspective

25 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Finding perspective is a key component of this show and in today's episode, we're going to explore a visualization of perspective to help us get a mor...

Balancing Accountability and Empathy

23 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Accountability provides an observable access to the things you're committing to following through on. Whatever your commitment is, having accountabil...

Habits of Successful Software Engineers - Multiplying Value by Thinking in Systems

21 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Most of what we do as developers is solve problems. In today's episode, we're talking about the skill of problem solving and working out hard problem...

Messages in Object Oriented Programming

18 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In today's episode we're talking about a misconception that many developers carry about object oriented programming. We'll keep the episode short toda...

Be Present While Thinking on the Past and Future

16 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

If you're living like the average developer, you have a lot of things coming up. Events, plans and holidays to name a few. We're looking forward based...

Leverage As A Career Heuristic

14 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

How do you set your goals? In the context of a company and as an individual contributor. In today's episode, we're talking about sustainability as a h...

Don't Use Transparency As a Weapon

11 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In today's episode we're talking about a behavior that's gained a lot of traction lately and that's being candid with people. We're going to talk abou...

Steps to Become a Terrible Developer

09 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What does it mean to be a bad developer? In today's episode, we'll focus on the actions that won't get you fired but while continuing to keep your job...

The Ocean of Choice Between Can and Will

07 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Understanding the difference between can do and will do, might be the key to understanding the affordance of possibilities especially when it comes to...

Priming Effects

04 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Today, we're talking about priming. Specifically in this episode we'll cover our reactions and responses to the things that happen to us on a day-to-d...

Dealing With Overwhelm

03 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Life gets overwhelming. In today's episode we'll talk about facing overwhelm and how can we focus on the things that matter the most and avoid crippli...

Admitting When You Don't Know

30 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A lot of bad advice is given on ways to manage being in a bad interview as the interviewee. In this environment the interviewer is waiting for you to ...

From Explicit to Implicit: When Our Mental Energy is Wasted

28 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In today's episode we talk about moving some wasteful processes and systems from explicit to implicit. Today's episode is sponsored by Bluemedora. Upg...

Implicit to Explicit: Management Systems

25 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In our last episode we talked about taking implicit or automatic processes and making them more explicit, bringing them to a slower thought process. I...

Implicit to Explicit: Perception and Emotions

23 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In our last episode we talked about taking implicit or automatic processes and making them more explicit, bringing them to a slower thought process. I...

Moving Implicit Systems to Be More Explicit

20 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Auto-pilot systems that we use to help us make decisions can be incredibly useful and in the worst of times these can take away from our ultimate goal...

Progress by Habit, Perception by Exception

18 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In today's episode, we're talking about the relationship between our perception of habits and how those effect the outlook on our careers. How does ou...

Product Mindset w/ Jessica Hall (Part 2)

16 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Today's episode we're joined by Jessica Hall, Co-Author of the book Product Mindsetand in this part two of our two part interview with Jessica we dive...

Product Mindset w/ Jessica Hall (Part 1)

13 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Today's episode we're joined by Jessica Hall, Co-Author of the book Product Mindsetand in this part one of our two part interview with Jessica we talk...

How To Be A Bad Manager

11 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In today's episode, we're talking about bad managers but instead of outlining the things to avoid as a manager, we are looking at the things we want t...

Imagining a Clearer Reality

09 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Today, we discuss the difficulty of imagining an alternate reality, and how that affects our decision making for the future. This episode is sponsored...

Digging Up Your Purpose

06 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In today's episode, we discuss the difficulty of finding your personal purpose, and the tension we can all feel when we can't put our finger on our pu...

The Nuances of Behavior and Research

04 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In today's episode we're talking about behavior changes. Specifically motivations and how tricky it is to find the things we need to accomplish the go...

Advice I Would Have Rejected Ten Years Ago

03 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

We can all expect to change daily, monthly and yearly. In today's episode, we're going through an exercise to identify changes we've experienced in ou...

Your Purpose is Not a Point in the Future

30 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

One of the most common topics for this show is the topic of finding purpose as a driven developer. In today's episode, we're talking about a different...

Listen To This In You're Feeling Stuck

28 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The feeling of being stuck is hard and emotionally draining. In today's episode, we're providing strategies to help you get unstuck when you find your...

Improve Your Team by Rejecting These Bad Assumptions

26 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

We talk a lot about setting ourselves up for personal success. In today's episode, we're focusing on the philosophies of self-improvements as they wou...

Using Pre-Mortems to Find the Opposition to Our Focus

23 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In today's episode, we're talking about why we lose focus and how we can get back into a focus state when it's lost. Get in touch If you have question...

Taking Advantage of Your Time as a Student

21 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In today's episode we're talking about taking advantage of unique positions we are put in as a developer to learn and grown. If you're a student head...

Beating Boredom in Your Career

19 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In today's episode we're talking about boredom. We can't avoid it in our day-to-day but we can provide ways to address boredom when it occurs. Get in ...

Short Term Decisions, Long Term Mindset

16 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The most valuable decisions you make are the ones that last, but most of the decisions we make as a developer are small day-to-day. In today's episode...

Beating Dogma And Choosing The Right Tools

14 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In today's episode, we're talking about being highly opinionated as a developer. We'll talk about resolving opinion differences between developers in ...

Reaping Rewards by Expecting Success

12 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In today's episode, we're talking about success and what it has to do with motivation, learning and at least a little bit of success amongst the failu...

Going Beyond Simply Fixing Failures

09 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Most of the developers listening to this episode are responsible for your own learning efforts and career growth. Very often you hear stories about ho...

How to Engineer More Epiphany Moments in Your Day-to-Day

05 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Whether you're in a contributing role or you're a leader, you run into idea blocks. The moments when you get moments of epiphany can be rare. In toda...

3x3 - Misconceptions About Senior Engineers

02 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What exactly does it mean to be a senior engineer? In today's episode we're talking about three misconceptions about what it means to be a senior engi...

3x3 - Relating Better With Difficult Coworkers

31 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In today's 3x3 episode we're talking about three different strategies when dealing with difficult coworkers better. Get in touch If you have questions...

3x3 - Uncovering Hidden Information

29 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In today's episode, we're talking about uncovering hidden information using three different techniques. Get in touch If you have questions about today...

Belief Substitution

26 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In today's episode, we're talking about why we believe and hold our beliefs so strongly. We'll talk about our reasoning behind the complexities of our...

Career Decisions and Penalty Kicks

24 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In today's episode, we're talking about the intensity of being faced with prediction when making a complex calculation and make decisions. Many of the...

How to Affect Organizational Change

22 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Pretty much everything we do as developers affects change. In today's episode, we're talking about the hardest types of change. The types that require...

Every Decision is an Opportunity Tradeoff

19 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Take a moment and think back on the last 24 hours. What did you give up and what are you giving up to listen to this podcast episode? In today's episo...

The Dangerous Characteristics of 10x Engineers

17 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In today's episode, we're uncovering core features of the 10x engineer stereotype and why this could be viewed as unhealthy. Get in touch If you have ...

You're Not So Important - Why Our Ego Drives Anxiety in the Workspace

15 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Much of our careers are based on relationships and shaped by the decisions we make with the people around us. It makes sense, that if we're shaping ou...

Finding Beginner's Luck Again

12 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What is the reason for beginner's luck and how can we figure out how to have beginner's luck when we're no longer beginners? That's what we're talking...

Part 3: An Elegant Puzzle Book Discussion w/ Will Larson

10 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In today's episode ,we release part 1 of a three part interview with Will Larson. Will is an engineering manager at Stripe, and he recently published ...