Keeping a "work journal" • April 26, 2021
When I was helping to hire more people to my team a couple of years ago (I was an individual contributor at the time), I was reviewing the resumes of candidates. One particular application caught my attention because it came with a "work journal" as part of it. It was nothing complex: just a list of things a person did at their job, together with awards and recognition they've received from peers…
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How to effectively give feedback • April 24, 2021
I love getting feedback and I love giving it when I have something to share. Oftentimes, though, when I ask for feedback, I hear mostly “oh, you’re great” or, if I’m asking about something I made, “It’s ok/good/great/interesting”. That’s where my anxious brain goes “oh, come onnnn” and stop believing anything a person has said. The reason why my brain doesn’t trust this kind of feedback is because…
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The first big project live! • April 07, 2021
I became a manager in July of 2020, and in September we kicked off RHLS Premium. This was the first large project I didn't get to code, but got to manage the engineering side. After 6 months of research and development, a huge cross-functional effort from the whole Red Hat Training department, and a few weeks of a closed Beta, we're finally live! See the announcement here. I want to remember this…
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Assessing growth in management vs development • March 23, 2021
When I was 1 year into programming, I was feeling really good about my progress. I could say I knew some concepts of JavaScript, some HTML, some CSS, Git, and even some Python (well, not Python per se, just Django). As I’ve passed 1 year since I became a team lead, and am approaching 1 year since I became a manager, I started thinking about my progress. Honestly, I don’t have the same sense of “I…
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"Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" — why we're still asking that on interviews • February 18, 2021
I stumbled upon a discussion on Twitter yesterday, where someone was saying they're surprised that asking "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" is still a thing. I have been asked this question before, and now I'm asking it as a hiring manager in my interviews. This is a short post about why. I remember my first couple of interviews as a software engineer: just starting my career, I obviously…
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I got 2 negative reviews of my management skills • November 08, 2020
As part of Red Hat's quarterly survey, associates are asked to relate to a statement "I would highly recommend my manager to others" with 5 choices varying from "completely disagree" to "completely agree". Managers can see anonymized results for their reports, and 2 out of 5 people on my team gave a negative response (I'm not sure what exactly it means, probably they chose either "completely…
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Management algorithm: should I have a difficult conversation? • August 04, 2020
Image taken from Wired Disclaimer: I’m not going to pretend I know everything in here, this is just a note for me because I’m new to the management role. If your experience is different or you have something to add, hit me up on Twitter but I don’t guarantee a response :) I’ve been feeling like a shitty manager lately, because I don’t always have the energy (or desire, to be honest) to have…
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How to find a git branch and check it out in one command • July 16, 2020
I switch branches in my projects a lot. What I'm always struggling with, though, is remembering branch names. In my team, branch naming convention is [feature/bugfix]/<ticketNumber>-<description-in-snake-case> which makes it hard to guess branch name if you're in a hurry. I wrote a shortcut command to help with those cases. Here it is in my .zshrc: gbco is short for git branch checkout (not a real…
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Brno tourist guide: things you'll definitely face • June 24, 2019
If you're reading this, I suppose you're going to Brno sometime soon. I'm writing this for all of my friends that (I hope) eventually will visit me. If you've never met me online or in person, keep reading anyway — hope you'll find something useful. 1. Getting here There are a couple of ways to arrive to Brno using civil transportation: you can come by the plane, by train or by bus. Plane Ryanair…
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New blog, who dis? • April 22, 2019
It's been 6 months since I wrote something on my blog. The reason for that is simple: I didn't like what I had as much, thus I had no desire to use the tools I chose. My journey with blogging goes way back to 2010, I guess: frist I had a blog on Blogger, then I kind of grew up from it and decided I need something of my own (plus paying $15 for my own domain didn't seem like a good idea for a…
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Переїзд до Чехії: наш досвід • October 26, 2018
Привіт! Цей пост буде українською, хоча я й планую далі писати англійською. З часу нашого із Святом переїзду у Брно вже кілька наших друзів замислилися про перехід до Red Hat. Цим постом я хочу допомогти їм дізнатися більше про процес найму, переїзду, та й взагалі про життя тут. Disclaimer Я працюю у Red Hat на позиції Systems Design Engineer з травня 2018 року. Живу разом з чоловіком у місті Брно…
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