Christopher Molozian

I once seen a post which suggested that junior developers should think about the question they’re wanting to ask before asking it. That if they think it’s stupid they shouldn’t ask it. I couldn’t disagree more. Better to ask the silly question than suffer in silence. No judgements here, even if it’s something basic like centering a div or how to correctly use a washing machine. (Btw - I still haven’t figured either of those out 🙄). Ask a silly question or not ask a silly question? That’s the question.

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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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And here I had hoped that we had passed the era of: "the best software developers were the ones who could best write the code" a very long time ago. I think most of us realized in the naughties, that the best software developers were the ones who wrote the most readable and readily changeable code. Picking the right abstractions, making them as clear as possible. I don't know if AI is capable of that - it probably is. It just wont get there unless: 1. our prompts identify the value propositions of the abstractions we want to see. 2. the training rewards readability, and a balance between cohesion and decoupling.

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Why do I favour practices like developer testing, TDD, refactoring and continuous integration? It's to enable rapid & sustained evolution of production-ready software. The odds of delivering the right thing in a single pass are so remote that many iterations are likely required. And even when we hit the bullseye, it's almost always a moving target. Not least because putting software into an environment has a tendency to change that environment and the problems we need to solve.

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Looking for a reason to hire junior developers? Ignoring them is a big mistake, as John Crickett correctly points out. 👇 Sure, they might lack experience. However don't mistake their inexperience for incapacity. ➕ Their fresh eyes unravel new perspectives on old problems. ➕ Their hunger for learning is unmatchable. ➕ They're innovative, adaptable, and ready to absorb knowledge. Investing in junior talent is investing in the future of your business. 𝗧𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆'𝘀 𝗷𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗼𝗿 𝗱𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗿𝗼𝘄'𝘀 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀. So, next time there's a position open, consider them. You might just be surprised.

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Want to watch me build an app in 30 minutes at SXSW London? 👀 Only joking… sort of. The way we code and build apps is changing FAST, and I think its super important that engineers are keeping up with the most up to date workflows and tools. Tools like Copilot and Cursor are making development faster, smarter, and more accessible than ever. At SXSW London, I want to show you how to harness these tools for your own projects. My hands-on talk will explore the AI transforming app development and what it means for the future of our industry. But I need your vote to make it happen. ➡️ Sign up for a SXSW voting account and hit the heart on my session page here: https://lnkd.in/eRmSSUnu

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As a software developer, if I'm stumped on a problem I'll start searching and reading. Blogs, tutorials, Stack Overflow, function reference guides, github issues etc.. Sometimes it's the same problem over and over again (date/time format strings anyone?) Today was no exception, and for all those new to software development who think they're expected to know everything about their language of choice, or their chosen cloud platform, or a core package you use, you're not. It's simply impossible. So I want to call out the tutorial I read today that helped me and I'd ask other devs to do the same - what did you lookup today, what did you learn today, what did you have to search for again? Here's what saved me today: https://lnkd.in/exFG_Xxa (MS Tutorial: Migrate outbound access to Azure NAT Gateway) #softwaredevelopment

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Developers of LinkedIn. I'm doing a bit of research on if and how you're using AI coding tooling. This is an anonymous survey, done using Google forms as LI polls aren't really sophisticated enough. Please do read the disclaimer at the top, it's an anonymous survey and participation is optional. Do not include any personally identifiable information. Thank you in advance if you choose to participate. The link for the survey is in the comments. Meme image included for your pleasure. #developers #ai #artificialintelligence #copilot #softwaredevelopers #coders

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🔥🔥🔥amazing software engineering posts from the past week🔥🔥🔥 Ryan Murphy rejection means only that: rejection. Keep going. https://lnkd.in/ecfy5tBV Tiger Abrodi consistently posting TypeScript knowledge bombs https://lnkd.in/ebeapvQ9 Taha Hussain are you fueling the micromanager in your life?? https://lnkd.in/eFtrhiHN Eric Roby please keep your processes simple! your success depends on it! https://lnkd.in/epk7Q_qJ Owain Lewis principles for a delegation: I needed this 2 years ago. https://lnkd.in/eNvt564u Pramoda Vyasarao master the basics https://lnkd.in/eMKTMesj Matt Watson new, "exciting" and complex tech excites only one person: the person who uses it to build. long term success needs tech that is boring, known and comes with a talent pool. https://lnkd.in/e8aK9aQt Austin Belcak above average results require above average effort. Go the extra mile - the road is never crowded. https://lnkd.in/edWQGDPH Francis Nayan take. action. today! https://lnkd.in/ej-HbcpJ Callie Buruchara 7 principles for giving feedback. it's easy to see that Callie is leading from experience! https://lnkd.in/e9XXnDyq

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Was playing around with the #Zed IDE from Zed Industries this evening. There's no Windows installer for it yet but you can compile it pretty easily. Yesterday I updated my #Rust toolchain, and with Visual Studio Community made sure the MSVC C++ build tools and Windows 11 SDK were installed. I let `cargo run` do its thing while I did other stuff, and when it eventually finished, it just launched without any build errors. Love that. Still early days though, it's not yet the most intuitive to use. I do like the docs as they are now, and also the familiar keybindings from VS Code. I wonder how easy a complete newcomer would find it though. The idea of built in #collaboration features for the IDE is great. I first saw this kind of feature many years ago in JetBrains #IntelliJ IDEA, where you could do things like viewing a colleague's session and diffing files against their local copy. I thought that was amazing! We've also seen it in recent years in Visual Studio Code and VS proper with #LiveShare. One thing these kinds of tools have issues with usually though is challenges within corporations - networking policies, proxies and firewalls, data privacy policies, etc. Having an ability to use an on-premise/local server for this would be nice too I think. As far as I understand, you can run a local collaboration version, but it's just a dev tool at the moment more than a product. The ability to follow collaborators is useful for #remotePairing or #mobProgramming. Channels with a side-by-side chat window, and note links to Markdown notes is nice. I haven't really used all the features fully, but I think it might support voice? Since COVID days I've wanted a way to combine something like Discord with Live Share or MS Teams, where you can enter a "room" with your colleagues/team, similar to being in an open office while working on-site, but now working remotely. Need a break, go over into the "coffee corner" virtual room and see what people in there are chatting or talking about - whether its collaborating on something, or just socializing. Need to have a quick team breakaway discussion, use another room/channel. Having AI as another "collaborator" in the IDE is of course nice. Interesting to see the support of multiple language model integrations too. I've recently been wanting to get back into the command line world as a primary environment, and like that it has built in vim emulation (yes... I'm finally wanting to figure out how to be a vim power user... maybe). Glad to see there's a #csharp extension, as well as an #asciidoc extension, think I might be testing those pretty soon :) Looking forward to not just playing around a bit, but trying it out on a proper project, to see how it performs. zed.dev https://lnkd.in/e5Shjx8P

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Have you been looking on Wrongmove? Most developers waste a whole lot of time looking at ‘deals’ that never stack-up. And, if you do ever buy something that’s On or ‘In’ the market (where you’ll be bidding against competition), the only way you’ll do that is by being the person that pays the most. In a business that’s already so risky, paying too much for things before you’ve even started is the worse thing you can do. To listen to this full episode of the Inside Property Development Podcast, head to the link in my bio now. . . . #propertypodcast #propertypodcasts #propertypodcasters #propertypodcastsuk #propertybusiness #propertytips

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I've been deep-diving token naming conventions as I'm starting to re-architect our shipwright design system. I'm going to be spending some time working on this for Intermode - Software Consultancy for Logistics & Supply Chain. That being said, it's crazy how everyone approaches tokens differently. I know Romina Kavcic and some others are working on a standard ( Thank you! ). Now I'm starting with Figma variables, which I know are not tokens but I want to make sure that we have a good representation in our design tool for our team. I'll be documenting this effort here as I build things! Attached is another rough exploration to help set the vision. #design #designsystems

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A couple of months ago, at the height of Devin fever, I wrote a post stating I didn’t believe you’d lose your job to Devin but that AI was already affecting the job market. Particularly for junior developers. It was nice to have my opinion validated by the clever folks over at Continuous Delivery 😊 this week. I have some more thoughts to share on this topic though. Fundamentally, AI code generation is just another step in the journey we’ve been on for a long time making it easier to write code. When I was a junior developer, if I wanted to use a library I’d have to read the documentation for it. I couldn’t search the internet for an example. I couldn’t ask strangers on Stack Overflow. I’d have to read the documentation and figure it out. Junior developers today don’t have that skill set (generally speaking). Why read the documentation and figure out what code to write if you can just copy and paste it from Stack Overflow? Using ChatGPT or GitHub Copilot to know what code to write is simply the next evolutionary step. Sure, you lose something, just as the developer copy and pasting from Stack Overflow lost a little something compared to someone who read and understood the documentation. Thing is, we no longer need every developer to have that level of understanding. I’d love it if we all did, but that’s simply not realistic. As AI tools evolve, so will the skills developers need to write code. Just as they have so far. I have yet to see anything though that will replace the function of a human interpreting requirements from another human to turn them into code. The sheer fact that prompt engineering has become a skill should tell you everything you need to know about how capable AI truly is. 

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Posts that ATTEMPT to classify Software Developers get it wrong ALL THE TIME. Here's why... There is no 'customer focused engineer' or '10x ninja'. There are only two types: 1. Developers with no side projects. 2. Developers with unfinished side projects.

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TDD is expensive Like many other niche technologies Delivery of software is not only a technical problem It’s logistical and people problem as well It can be using Kotlin in Java company It can be adding a better database engine It can be applying Event sourcing to all systems You can say all of those are great But there are a couple of non-technical problems 🧠 Knowledge The whole team must know the new solution They need space to learn and practice You may get training from an expert Both cost money and time 🚦 Risk You face the bus factor What if the devs will leave? (they will) How will you maintain the niche solution? How much will it cost to hire or train a replacement? 👩 Hiring Adding new technologies narrows the pool of hires The more niche you go the harder is to find a good fit The longer hiring process will strain delivery You'll have to balance with higher salaries ☯️ Alignment What about your current team? 80% of them like tests but aren’t fans of TDD What will you do? Force them to learn or let them go? The culture will take a hit and retention will sink What can you do instead? Keep it simple Keep it boring Focus on the basics Drive incremental improvement Find alignment before picking new tech Get excited about the features and business If you don’t need to fix niche problems You get more time to deliver value

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I'm a great fan of Convention Commits (https://lnkd.in/d8X6t4mb). Having a spec for standardising commit messages makes a lot of sense, and not only improves the readability of your commit messages, but makes them machine readable, so we can build applications that can use them reliably. But... If you're a #DataScientist or #MachineLearningEngineer you may find that the list of possible types is too limited. These are your options based on the spec: 'build', 'chore', 'ci', 'docs', 'feat', 'fix', 'perf', 'refactor', 'revert', 'style', 'test' What if, as a keen DVC.ai user I run my model training pipeline and I want to push a commit that updates the latest version of the data on a branch? It's not really a `feat`, I guess it can be a `chore`, but it really feels like there's something missing. What if I am storing my model params in Git, whether with DVC or not, and I want to update these in a commit. Which type do I used then? I'm sure there are some other use cases that I've not thought of which are relevant to building models. Maybe there's something around prompt management? Am I complaining about nothing, or is there scope to add some additional #MachineLearning specific types?

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Your dev team is under resourced Spoiler - it always will be Don't get trapped thinking if you just had two more (or fifty more) devs you'd be able to work through the backlog and get ahead. The problem is that teams try and filter and prioritise *down stream* on outputs. 100's of outputs. Try filtering and prioritising *up stream* on strategic outcomes that matter to the business (and across the business).

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MVPs shouldn't go to the bin, unless the business pivots to something else. Way too often I've seen agencies & devs building MVPs in a 'poor' way (and that's a nice way of putting it), because 'who cares, it will go to the bin anyway when you get PMF and fundraise'. I disagree. There's absolutely NO reason that your MVP should go to the bin, unless your business model or product change dramatically. And even then, a lot of boilerplate (like signup, subscriptions management, emails, etc) - can and should stay the same. If done right, that should be a given, with 0 extra effort on the dev side. If someone's quoting you to do a poor job, don't work with them. You can stay agile & lean (as a startup should) without compromising on quality, and forcing yourself to rewrite the next version of your app. When you're investing in something, especially at an early stage when money is tight, it's important to NOT buy garbage.

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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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