Anna J McDougall

👉We have been chatting to a couple of new clients in Germany this week, about using freelance Developers/Engineers outside of Germany (Nearshore), the same questions pop up; ✔How do we know if they are good or not? ✔How much can we save? ✔How quickly can they start? 👀Like anything, there is pros and cons to everywhere, but we have built a network of Freelance Nearshore Engineers who have been rigorously vetted with technical expertise guaranteed, that could save you a 50% reduction on your current freelance rates. If you are interested to understand more about this option and how this could help your business. 🚨Feel free to book a call in my Calendly and let’s see if we can help - https://lnkd.in/eygXyhaz

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Over the past few months I’ve written an extensive tutorial on how to build software applications with Node.js and React. I’m sorry to tell you that this experience didn’t teach me anything about B2B sales, though. But hopefully, it’s still useful for some people out there. From the introduction: The approach of this tutorial is to teach its readers how to build a fully working software application from zero to production. This means two things: 1. You are not required to have done any kind of software development before getting started with this tutorial. It will introduce and explain everything that is needed to build applications in full detail, assuming no prior knowledge or experience. This is the “from zero” part. 2. Building on the foundational knowledge it teaches in the first half, the tutorial will then, step by step, guide you through the process of building a real, full-fledged, and completely working software application, again explaining every detail along the way, and shows how to “deploy” that application — that is, how to make that application available on the Internet for anyone to use. This is the “to production” part. Speaking of B2B sales: I’m afraid you cannot buy this tutorial. That’s because I’m making it available for free, as a series of posts on my blog. The first three parts are already published: https://lnkd.in/e2XCYm3p https://lnkd.in/eW7wUc_d https://lnkd.in/eAU6kgH9 No, you do not need to sign up to my newsletter to get access to the tutorial. That’s mainly because I don’t have a newsletter. Also, no need to follow me (although admittedly, it might help to get you notified whenever I’m publishing a new chapter). Furthermore, please don’t be disappointed if clicking on the tutorial links won’t present you with a cookie banner. That’s because my blog doesn’t use any cookies. No, not even those from Google Analytics, as I’m not using that either. This means I will have no idea how many people will read the tutorial — which makes sense because let’s face it, who is going to consume this kind of long-form, deep-dive technical content nowadays anyway. And in text-only form, of all things! Should you nevertheless decide to dive into the text, expect to learn how to program using JavaScript and TypeScript, how to use these languages to build rock-stable backend applications with Node.js as well as elegant frontend applications with React and Redux, and finally, how publish a complete and integrated software solution on Amazon AWS. Ok, that’s it. If you want to access the bonus chapters, simply subscribe to… — just kidding. There are no bonus chapters. Everything you need to learn to build useful software products is right in the… normal chapters, I guess? Happy reading!

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99% of CTOs I speak to avoid hiring software engineers for this reason: If you can’t: > Accept constructive feedback > Talk about a project that went wrong > Take accountability for mistakes > Acknowledge contribution of others It’s time to reassess- fast Less ego, more modesty

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Can an Engineering Manager who is 50% hands-on properly manage a team of Software Engineers as well? A conversation I had with an Engineering Lead I was pitching a position to, but he was not interested. He said with that much hands-on stuff in the role they would not be able to manage effectively. And not enough hours in the day. Even if the team of Engineers is quite Senior. But with most Engineering Leadership roles requiring a lot of hands-on work - surely this is not the case? And companies seem to think it is very doable based on the requirements for pretty much every Engineering Lead vacancy out there right now. #Ventellect #SoftwareEngineering #TechRecruitment

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ADHD is often misunderstood—people think it’s all about distractions or laziness, and some think it's not even real. I've struggled with ADHD for as long as I can remember, I never got any support for it whatsoever and had to "raw dog" life and build habits to help me be functional. I've found the truth is It’s a superpower when harnessed right. Here’s how I stay productive without burning out. The key to controlling chaos is a solid routine. Block your day into chunks—focus sessions with breaks in between. It sounds simple, but structure is freedom for ADHD brains. The Pomodoro technique is a game-changer. Work for 25 minutes, then take a 5-minute break—rinse and repeat. This keeps focus sharp and prevents burnout. Big tasks feel overwhelming with ADHD, so break them down. Instead of “write an article,” make the first step “write 50 words.” Small wins build momentum, and momentum gets you to the finish line. ADHD makes everything seem important. Set up your environment for focus—notifications off, distractions minimised. Out of sight, out of mind works wonders. Hyperfocus is the ADHD superpower no one talks about. When you’re in the zone, you’re unstoppable—ride the wave. But remember to take breaks or you’ll burn out. ADHD brains are forgetful, so don’t rely on memory. Use tools like Notion or even a simple to-do list. Offloading tasks gives your brain room to breathe and focus. Multitasking might feel productive, but it’s the enemy of focus. Stick to one task at a time and you’ll actually get more done. Prioritise quality over quantity. ADHD brains are wired for dopamine, so give them what they need. Set up rewards for finishing tasks—whether it’s a snack, a break, or something bigger. The more you reinforce good habits, the more they’ll stick. Physical movement helps regulate your brain’s energy and focus levels. A quick walk or stretch between tasks can reset your attention. Don’t underestimate the power of movement for mental clarity. ADHD can make you feel like you’re constantly falling behind. But remember, it’s not a flaw—it’s just a different operating system. Celebrate the wins, learn from the losses, and keep moving forward. I've built a successful career despite my ADHD, you can do it to. If you're interested this is my affiliate link to Notion, It's what I use to help bring structure to my life and help me manage my ADHD. https://lnkd.in/eHKqdpQu

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🤓 It's not hard to hire a senior developer You're just not offering them what they want. I posted a survey in a Slack group with devs, asking this question: "Would you as a senior developer be open to change jobs NOW if you can work 100% remotely?" (Btw, many of them are social and will come to the office more often. They just want true flexibility and quality of life. And to be fair, they want to do what they love, which is coding, with the minimum amount of interruptions.) Although the dataset is small, the results are interesting. 💸 38 % are willing to take a lower salary if they can work remotely ❓ 17 % would join a company that has some financial uncertainty if they can work remotely 😑 41 % would take a job with a less exciting role, product and techstack if they can work remotely This is an incredible opportunity to hire some seriously great engineers. Especially if you: — Can't pay the highest salaries — Don't build spaceships or AI agents — Are located in a small town or rural area Are there tradeoffs and challenges with (some) remote team members? Of course. But I just can't understand why more companies are not willing to take some risk here. You might regret this when the market turns upwards again. 🕺🏻

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As a developer, you can contribute far more than just the code you write… 👉 Technical skills will only take you so far... Work on: 🟢 Leadership (regardless of how senior or junior you are) 🟢 Collaborating effectively 🟢 Displaying vulnerability 🟢 Empathy for others 🟢 Showing humility 🟢 Communication And you’ll go far 👀

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Programming tests are: ❌ Often stressful ❌ Take-home tests are usually time-consuming ❌ Rarely representative of the approach and conditions of the job that they're testing for ❌ Many times online code testing platforms will penalise you for clicking away from the screen and sometimes they penalise you for any copying and pasting ❌ Usually theoretical "best practice" based - showing how you might do something if you were working in a vacuum, not accounting for business needs / interdependencies with legacy platforms etc ❌ Typically they favour those who have more recently come from education over more seasoned professionals ❌ In some cases the results are ignored or overlooked anyway if the candidate has done well enough in interviews rendering the test itself pointless ❌ In other cases companies take a "line in the sand", "computer says no" approach where even someone who is a known entity to the team or business will be rejected if they don't do well enough on the test   I have NEVER heard a developer say that they enjoy technical tests.   Some of the most senior, capable, accomplished developers I have worked with refuse to complete them as part of a process - particularly timed ones.   How often do you write code in a real life production environment with a timer counting down? And when would you ever want your team to not have access to Google or GitHub or Stack Overflow on a difficult task? A significant part of an Engineer's role is to research potential solutions critically, not to be a walking programming encyclopedia!   Even if your test is a less pressured, more representative take-home task rather than a recorded or monitored time-pressured task, they're not always that informative and they often take up a large chunk of time, which, particularly for someone who is currently in full-time employment and interviewing for multiple other opportunities, is a lot to ask. They also often lead to excellent candidates withdrawing from the process.   To quote a senior dev I spoke to the other day: "It doesn't matter how great the pay or the company or the work are. I'm a professional with over 10 years' experience, treat me like it. Don't set me bullsh1t homework"     👉 So why is it that so many interview processes use them? 👉 And what are the genuine legitimate alternative approaches to be able to ascertain someone's technical capability?   Keen to hear your thoughts Linkedin? Futura Talent #technicaltesting #techrecruitment #developerlife #softwaredeveloper #softwareengineer

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I'm prepping for a conf talk at the BrowserConf this week and will be talking about test flakiness in e2e testing (Playwright will be the example). What are your pain points when it comes to flaky e2e tests?

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Hiring developers is risky. Hiring juniors is even more of a challenge. The last thing you want is someone that will slow your team down. Spending money to slow your team down is the last thing you want, right? What if there was another way? What if that way came with zero hiring fees? What if you could get developer recommendations (recommended by a developer with 20+ years of experience) for talent of all levels, local and international. Tired of paying recruiter fees and not knowing the quality you're going to receive? DM me and find out how I can help you hire the BEST developers .... for FREE! #hiring #javascript #python #java #php #reactjs #nodejs #ruby #golang

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One simple way to retain software engineers. An end of year review. Goal setting for 2025. Proper 1-2-1 time. Where possible, ideally face-to-face. Sounds obvious. But many engineers I speak say it doesn’t happen. People want to feel valued. When was the last time you had a 1-2-1? #retention #endofyearreview #2025goals

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Where do most of the good Software Engineers apply for jobs? The answer is usually... nowhere Great Engineers are often passive, responding occasionally to messages that really pique their interest, or sometimes reaching out to companies that have great employer branding If you haven't got great employer branding, and you don't work with an external recruitment partner or have an internal talent person doing outbound reach out, really you are settling for who is active and who happens to see your job posting If it was me building my founding engineering team, I would want to know that nearly every Software Engineer that may be relevant to my team (right tech background, worked in the environments I like, location/salary aligned) has been reached out to and knows about what I'm building The value that we can add as recruitment agencies (if a market specialist in what you're recruiting for), we can get your message out to hundreds of relevant Software Engineers in a day Then... We're good at presenting opportunities. Often I'll speak to an Engineer about a role, and they say oh I did see them online but I didn't think it looked that interesting... But we can get them interested in you Maybe you can hire a better-quality Engineer than you ever expected 🤔

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An easy way to assess a freelance developer's competence is by telling them EXACTLY what you're assessing for. It sounds so simple and obvious, yet many hiring managers (technical and non-technical) fail to do this. Some see interviews more like an interrogation, designed to catch the candidate out, but it's rarely a useful approach. Instead, tell your candidate about your project goals, customer outcomes, and the specifics of how you're assessing them. For example: "We're creating a service that helps users manage their healthcare and medication better. We're building a WebApp that uses A.I. to support user needs. Tell me about any relevant experience you have: - Building WebApps - Building using A.I - Plus, any healthcare experience " Encourage the candidate to first set the scene, and tell you about the project they were working on and what the outcome was. From here, ask them to work backwards, explaining the role they played, what tools and tech they used, and how they collaborated with others. Follow up with simple questions such as: "Tell me how you ensured you understood the brief?" , "How did you validate and test your solution?" , "On reflection, would you have used different tools, or built in a different way". In my opinion, you don't actually need to understand the in-depth technicalities to assess whether someone can help you or not. Since you're being very clear about what you want, all the candidates have an equal opportunity to sell themselves. Simply repeat this process with 3 or 4 candidates and I'll bet you'll know purely by feeling who is still most suitable for your project. After all, the one who can clearly articulate their capabilities is the one who is most likely to understand and deliver against your needs. Hiring freelance developers doesn't need to be complicated. ---------- Adrian G Ward - A technical partner to startups and SMBs. I've hired over 100 and interviewed over 1000 developers, if you need help hiring, give me a shout. #freelancers #developers #hiring #interviews

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STOP blaming yourself for not understanding that bug. It's not your fault. Why? It's almost always a tooling issue. I've spent thousands of hours... ...wondering... "WHY is the code doing that?" It's so frustrating. If you're under pressure with an outage... ...it's more than frustrating. For every minute you try to understand what's going on... ...you're losing the company money. There's not a second to lose. And yet... ...when every question you ask results in: "DUNNO" It's a terrible feeling. When you improve observability? You can ask your app ANY question. And get an answer in seconds. This is a superpower. And as an engineer? You feel invincible! And bugs can be fixed in minutes. DM me EXAMPLE and I'll share some examples with you! .

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There's always a lot of discussion about not deploying on a Friday... But rarely do I see discussion of why people want to deploy on a Friday to begin with. In my experience, a lot of the time it's because the development workflow is less than ideal, and a deploy is the easiest path to continue work. This is especially true for feature sets that cross service boundaries. People often have to make a change in multiple places, but often are missing a good developer experience to test end-to-end... And so they want to deploy on a Friday to keep working.

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​What is the market like?  I get asked this question multiple times a day! I feel like every week things are changing so my answer is different depending on what I'm seeing and hearing from people. My source: 100's of conversations with Software Engineers and Clients who typically hire Software Engineers. So, what is the market like this week?  If you're a candidate, great news, I feel like there are more roles than there were last month and last week. Yes, the competition is still stiff out there, but I'm hearing about more roles (mostly perm) and lots of candidates interviewing for roles (mostly perm). Don't believe because it's close to Christmas, therefore companies are not hiring. For clients, the quality of candidates I'm seeing out there currently is fantastic. We are currently recruiting multiple roles and the quality is exceptional, I'm literally blown away by choice and finding it difficult to just pick 3 for a shortlist. You can really hire someone great for your team punching high above the average and have them start in January 2025! There you have it! 😀

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Should every #juniordeveloper focus on the number of connections they have on LinkedIn? This was the debate from last nights workshop. What do you think? Is this the networking strategy you are employing? Does it work? Is it worth it? Fyi, there are 2x workshops for #developers on my course. Visit the Crushing Digital website for more details.

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There are 5 pieces of advice I’d give myself if I could go back in time. This month marks a decade since I started working in the software industry. I was exactly 20 years old when I got my first job in a small digital agency building WordPress websites. 1. Technologies change but principles and ideas remain the same. The same ideas that were relevant when I started are still as important. The same is not true for technologies. Take the time to study distributed systems theory, this impacted my career more than anything else (even though I’m focused on front-end dev right now). 2. Experience actually does matter. Not the time you’ve spent with a technology, but the time you’ve spent building products and working with people. You can be a prodigy but figuring out collaboration still takes time. 3. Titles are meaningless, knowledge is absolute. Throughout your career you’ll hold various positions - don’t optimize for that. Make sure you’re challenged and paid well. 4. You will never run out of things to learn so take advantage of the things you know. I’ve been working with React since 2016 and even though I know it inside and out I’m not jumping to something different. Now when I understand it well I can push the technology to its limits and build complex products. I won’t be able to do that with a tech whose API I’m trying to figure out. 5. You work with people. Don’t forget to build relationships while you’re building products. In my current job I work with friends I made 10 years ago and they’ve helped me find more opportunities than any recruiter.

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