Ben Mier

Ope, another blog post. For those of you that work with me, consider this my soft-launch of talking nonstop about job stories, consider yourself warned! job stories > user stories https://lnkd.in/g2KTxuKB

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The Aha! Moment 🎉 🎊 As a software engineer, we often find ourselves deep in the trenches, wrestling with complex concepts that just don't seem to click. It's frustrating, exhausting, and sometimes, you wonder if you'll ever get it. I've been struggling to understand some very difficult concepts in Python for a long time. It felt like hitting a wall over and over. But I persisted, kept pushing through the frustration, and today, something amazing happened. Suddenly, all the pieces started to fall into place. What once felt like chaos now makes perfect sense. It's like a fog lifting, revealing how everything is connected. This is why we keep going. These moments aren’t just about grasping a single concept; they’re about seeing the bigger picture, recognizing patterns, and realizing how it all fits together. It’s a breakthrough that changes how you approach problems. So, if you're in the thick of it right now, feeling stuck, just remember: the aha moment is out there waiting for you. Keep pushing, keep experimenting, and don’t be afraid to make mistakes. They often lead to breakthroughs. What's your most memorable aha moment in coding? Share your story—I’d love to hear how you broke through the tough spots! #TechCommunity #CodeStory #SoftwareEngineering

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🌟 Attention Engineering Managers and Technical Leaders! 🌟 In just two weeks, on June 28th at 10 AM PDT, I’m excited to host an interactive roundtable on Feature Flags and Delivery in conjunction with ELC! 🚀 Why Attend? This is a collaborative discussion where your expertise and curiosity are key! Whether you're experienced or eager to learn, your contributions are invaluable. 🔍 Discussion Points: - Decoupling Processes - Boosting Team Efficiency - Optimizing Feature Delivery - Tracking Platform Usage Expect rich conversations on best practices, unique implementations, methodologies, and the latest tools enhancing feature flagging and delivery. Who Should Join? - Engineering Managers - Technical Leads - DevOps Engineers - Software Developers This roundtable is your chance to: - Share your experiences - Gain new insights - Network with peers - Discover practical recommendations RSVP Now and mark your calendars for June 28th at 10 AM PDT! Let’s collaborate and elevate our skills together! #EngineeringManagement #TechLeaders #FeatureFlags #DevOps #SoftwareDevelopment #TeamEfficiency #TechRoundtable

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Ever struggled with coordinating the creation of Sunday morning worship, sermon, and announcement slides? Traditional software can make it tough, especially when you're trying to juggle emails, thumb drives, and last-minute edits. It's time-consuming, frustrating, and often leads to mistakes. That's where Risen Media comes in. Being web-based, our platform makes collaboration a breeze! You can easily create, access and edit your presentations from any device, anywhere. Whether you're at home, at the church office, or on the go, you and your team can work together seamlessly to create beautiful, engaging slides. Check out https://risenmedia.io/lirb to see how we can help streamline your workflow and save you time. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions! #ChurchTech #WorshipTech #SmallChurchSolutions #PresentationSoftware #RisenMedia #ChurchPresentationSoftware #ChurchMedia #SundayMornings #ChurchSoftware #WorshipMedia #Worship #WorshipSoftware #WorshipLeader #Pastor #Pastors

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I've been hearing a lot about "the end of the Jr Developer" lately and how no one should take software engineering anymore. Sure, the market is a bit of a mess right now with lots of layoffs and a bias toward hiring senior developers but what happens in 10 years when those senior devs are retiring or moving into managerial roles? It's the same with anything, if you aren't training the next generation of developers you are heading for a crisis sooner rather than later. We are trading short term gains for long term pain. AI might be steering use towards another dotcom or crypto style bubble but software development isn't going anywhere and ChatGPT isn't going to take any of our jobs. #softwaredevelopment #ai #softwareengineer

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Great insights! I had no idea software engineering was going to be hit so hard. I've about lost my shirt, for over 6 months without making a single plan because I didn't expect a layoff to happen. No company had or has money to spend on failed tech and I can't blame recruiters now-a-days for the downfall in job hirings either. Most good recruiters have disappeared into the wind. Lucky for them! AI was built to replace the mediocre not help the juniors grow into the industry which was pre-covid thinking. If you want to be apart of the solution and not the problem, teach HR people to see the value in hiring smart people not robots.

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UNCOMMON INTERVIEW ADVICE: Ditch the Training Wheels --- TL;DR: Stop relying on the training wheels—autocomplete IDEs, solving problems within the Leetcode environment, all of it. In other words, simulate the interview environment as closely as possible when you practice. --- Story time: Back in my freshman year, my roommate used Notepad(!) to code his programming assignments. To me, this seemed wildly inefficient. Notepad lacked all the features that make coding smoother. His reasoning was admirable though: he believed that doing so would train him to be a better programmer in the long run. Bro was lowkey cooking, but I couldn't see the vision. So I stuck with Eclipse (yes, first-year programmer—I know). Looking back, I realize I was wrong. Enter the Technical Interview. In many technical interviews today, you'll use tools that resemble Notepad more than a fully decked-out IDE. Interviewers are increasingly asking you to run your code live. That's when your weaknesses can become glaringly obvious. If you've been leaning on autocomplete and code completion, the interview will quickly expose you. Here are a few of my own hiccups: 👎🏾Forgetting Types: Is it str, string, or String? Don't remember. You're coding in Python, but interviewer uses Typescript so they can't help you either. 👎🏾OOP principles and return signatures—Should everything go in a class? Should I create an instance to access the method? Without your usual tools, even seasoned coders can stumble over simple things. This is even more relevant now, with tools like ChatGPT and Copilot. While they make you productive, the crutches can hurt you in interviews. Also, reading documentation. Be honest—you probably don't read documentation. You probably make use of the Google -> Stack Overflow -> copy-paste pipeline. But in an interview, you don’t have that luxury. The best you get is access to documentation. So, you’ve got two options: 1. Master the language inside out 2. Get comfortable with documentation Another Challenge: Debugging In real life, you can step through code with a debugger or use the ol' classic "change something and run it again". In interviews, though, you need a systematic approach: 1. Identify how the output differs from expectations. 2. Perform sanity checks: Misspelled variables? Off-by-one errors? 3. Develop hypotheses and test them systematically. Lastly, Verbalize Your Thought Process What’s intuitive to you isn't always clear to others. Practice explaining your logic as you code. I've improved by using the rubber duck method—explaining my code aloud or to an object. It helps clarify your thinking and makes it easier to articulate in an interview. In Summary: ⚙️ Rely less on tools when practicing. 📄 Learn to use documentation. 🧐 Develop systematic debugging skills. 🗣️ Verbalize your logic while coding. Long-form version here: https://lnkd.in/dsG4VHrv As always, have a productive week!🫡

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I have a question for software teams that meet ISO-27001 / SOC 2 Type II *and* who use outsourced software development with git. Do you have all your contractors sign all your policies so they can contribute to your codebase directly? Or do you have the outsourced team work in a separate git repository and then have an employee merge to the main repo? Or some other model?

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Technology is a never-ending journey of skill acquisition, akin to surfing. In surfing, you prepare for the next wave and make adjustments while riding it to stay balanced. Similarly, every 10-20 years, there's a significant shift in technology, and you must continually upskill to catch these waves and stay ahead. Keeping up with skill trends is essential for maintaining employment, as the learning process never truly ends. Specializations can be costly and often become obsolete very fast. Over time, new tools simplify and streamline previously complex and error-prone workflows. My strategy involves cultivating a broad skill set and maintaining a passion for learning that surpasses anyone I know. I dedicate every waking hour after work to learning something new.

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If you are a senior engineer, tech lead or an engineering manager currently pursuing opportunities and interviewing with companies? I can help by mock interviewing you (no cost). Topics are: - Engineering Management - System Design I will share feedback, what went well and areas of improvements. If you are not currently preparing, please share with your friends or folks who might need this. Comment for reach, or share in your network. Book a 45 mins time slot with me this week (link in comment). #softwareengineering #softwareengineers #interviews

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Super excited to talk about #GraphQL Federation at #GOTOchgo '24! Join my session to learn how it can help you build a scalable API platform. See you next week! #apiarchitecture

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Hello LinkedIn! I know there are a lot of job seekers out there right now, so I wanted to let you all know about a role we are trying to fill at Crunchyroll right now! If you aren't currently looking for a new role, please pass this on to the qualified seekers in your network and pay it forward today- you could really help someone out! DM me and I will get candidates into the referral pipeline and personally ensure their resume gets seen by the hiring manager. OK, but what about the details? This is a Sr. Frontend/Fullstack Web Developer role- what that essentially means is that you will be making websites using Javascript and do a little backend work to support that. Senior is a pretty high level at Crunchyroll, so you should be able to independently do all the things that need to get done to build, deploy, and maintain a standard SPA website. MINIMUM requirements for this job: - Know HTML/CSS/Javascript inside and out. We'll be testing this. - Demonstrate strong experience with React and it's ecosystem. And not just fresh knowledge- we maintain legacy systems so you should understand older versions of React and state management libraries like Redux. - Understand and have experience building and deploying single page applications. Be able to talk about the build pipeline, know what webpack is, have informed opinions on CI/CD. - Demonstrate knowledge of basic FE/BE architecture and design principles. Be able to discuss how these decisions affect the user's experience. - COMMUNICATE. We've all got different experience with the specifics of these general concepts depending on where we've worked. But you should be able to talk about how your experience relates to general web development principles and how it could translate to our ecosystem. You will have an excellent chance of landing this role if you also: - Can demonstrate experience with AWS serverless architecture and tooling. If you have experience with a different cloud provider, be ready to talk about how that experience maps to the AWS ecosystem. - Have experience with eCommerce and understand what's important about handling money and purchases for customers. - Have strong product and project management instincts to go with your technical skills. Working with our product team to define and refine requirements and documenting/planning that work in Jira is part of this job. If you've read this far, you deserve the link to the job site! https://lnkd.in/gA33Q_Y4 As mentioned above, reach out to me for a referral. As is typical in these hiring tools, I can't refer you if you've already applied. However, I'll still be happy to put your name in front of the hiring manager and try to get visibility on your application!

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Arcesium recently launched its engineering blog on Medium, and I’m thrilled to share that my blog was selected as the inaugural post! Check out my award-winning entry on "Accelerating Website Performance with Critical Rendering Path Optimization" below, https://lnkd.in/g2tnQs-F #arcesium #engineering #blog LinkedIn

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Exciting news! 🚀 SaaStr Annual 2025 will take place from May 13-15 in the SF Bay Area! 🌉 Events are pivotal for B2B success—fostering relationships and closing deals. It's essential for businesses to prioritize networking opportunities. Attend industry events, engage with new ideas, and align your team’s vision early in the year. Don’t wait; grab your tickets now for the best pricing! This isn’t just an event; it’s a chance to supercharge your pipeline! 💥 Leverage connections and insights from such gatherings to drive your growth. Let’s elevate our businesses together! 🙌 #BusinessGrowth #Networking #SaaStrAnnual

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Excited to share how #Cedar is tackling product and tech challenges that are outside of our regular planning. At Cedar, we’ve developed a simple framework to help us manage these situations more effectively and avoid common mistakes. We call it Pitch, Manage, Pivot or Persevere. Curious to see how this approach works? Check out the details and handy templates here: https://lnkd.in/gdEvsMKw

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Some have asked for the slides for this talk - here they are: https://lnkd.in/dZVsgvAa Thank you all for attending and best of luck on everyone's journey in fullstack development.

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