Interview busywork at its very best. Many companies often invite a leaving employee to what they, somewhat darkly, refer to as an ‘exit’ interview during their notice period. This is often framed as a way in which the company in question can learn how to improve itself, internally, from its…

Work monitoring is fast becoming ubiquitous, especially for remote workers, and it’s totally unacceptable. Some modern workplaces do still hang on to the anachronistic and dictatorial belief that efficiency is directly related to how long you spend sitting in your office chair staring at a screen all day. Aside from…

It’s not always people the problem, often it’s the hardware, and not the hardware you may think. There are many things that are harmful irritants in software engineering. From the many toxic tiers of management, through the endless fetid pools of process, amidst the bubbling and offensive gases of HR…

A short almost-review of the gripping book by Ben MacIntyre detailing the story of double agent Oleg Gordievsky. An Introduction I used to read a lot of books, but primarily due for to hours staring at a computer screen as a part of my day to day life, my eyes started getting…

A few observations of what sets the pseudo-sociopath, sorry, progressive apart from your usual software developer. I’ve always referred to what I think of pragmatic, thoughtful, somewhat philosophical software engineers as progressives. They’re progressive, simply, because they favour change and shun doctrine. It’s not just that they attempt to remain…

Tinker, Tailer, Soldier, Spy? More Psychologist, Philosopher, Diplomat, Sociopath to be completely honest. We walk a very fine line in the grand game of software engineering, often on a daily basis, and it can be very confusing for people outside of the industry when you tell them that you’re not…

A short rant on something that continually both alienates and annoys progressive engineers. If you’ve read any of my recent articles relating to performance reviews, their associated goals, and the general HR mandated tomfoolery around avoiding giving you an anywhere near decent pay rise then you’ll appreciate my utterly disdainful…

When did software products become so bland and unexciting and, more to the point, why? These days I really find it pretty hard to get excited about software. I mean, it’s not at all unusual to be completely unimpressed with things like UML, agile, design patterns, or yet another [JavaScript|Python]…

Work events taking place out of hours are still work events, no matter how much ‘fun’ you’re told to have. Enough, now. I only recently learned the term ‘Mandatory Fun’, surprisingly. This is really quite embarrassing after what seems like a lifetime of avoiding unpleasant and undesirable situations where some…