Connor Mason

Bring out the best in your remote teams with #mondaydotcom. monday connects your team members so they can stay aligned and continue to collaborate, manage, and track work in one easy-to-use platform, wherever you are. Click here to learn more: #WorkWithoutLimits #productivity #projectmanagement https://bit.ly/4cv4xTB

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Once you hit the #SeniorDev title, your career as a #SoftwareEngineer can go one of three ways. All of these are legitimate decisions and don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise! 1. Management -> This is the oldest and likely the most well-known option. You can head into management and start developing careers of those younger than you. If you love mentoring others and like focusing more on the non-technical management of a project, this is probably the route you want! 2. Staff -> The term "#StaffEngineer" is relatively new to the industry. Many think its title bloat, but I disagree! I think the industry as a whole saw that we needed a new role and we created it. (See my blog on https://iamsellek.com for in-depth info on what a Staff Engineer role looks like!) If you prefer to work in the tec, and you enjoy the bigger-picture aspects of running a codebase/project from the technical side, this might be the route you want! 3. Stay Senior -> Some people look down on this option. Those people are wrong. If you love writing code and doing some light mentoring, there's nothing at all wrong with sticking around as a Senior dev! Some people spend their entire careers here. TLDR? Figure out what you like best about your job. If you prefer mentoring and the non-technical aspects of managing a project, you can head into management. If you want to focus more on the technical side of managing a project and/or a codebase, go with Staff! And if you're happy where you're at, there's nothing wrong sticking with Senior Dev. Now go seize your future! #career #SoftwareEngineer #CareerLadder #future

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I'm going to post a few challenges I have had as a software QA. I should be relaxing today but those that know me, know my brain is always in thirty places at once. To developers: Trust your QA. Y'all don't know how many times I've heard, "Well, it works on my local". I don't care. In the test environment, it breaks. I do my due diligence to investigate why, present evidence in logs and from the database, present recordings, and meticulously document steps of reproduction and results. And even after, I still get, "It works on my local". Get off the dang local. NO ONE knows this software, app, platform, etc. better than the QA because we live it more than anyone else does. To business analysts: I know you all are overwhelmed. But please stop copying and pasting Acceptance Criteria for similar features. It makes a mess for developers and QA because the AC doesn't match or conflicts with not only the developed feature but integration as well. Which brings me to my next point... What QA is: Everyone thinks of us as just testers. I am sick of that. I spend half my time working with the product owner, BAs, and Devs, just making sure the AC reflects the solution needing to be resolved. I can't tell you how many times I have had to address with the BAs conflicts in a story over AC, nonsensical AC, WTF verbiage, etc. So then the developers get confused and we are in long meetings addressing what is messed up. We are here to help you ask the questions you didn't think to ask. We don't just test..... we look at future issues too. We like process improvements. Automation: Stop asking me to automate a one-off feature test that hasn't even gone through UAT yet. It's time wasted. Too many companies do this. Might as well give me the day off for the time it takes to do that because the automation is useless after UAT. Learn the purpose of automation. Product Owner: When I tell you before a demo not to demo certain things because there are still issues, don't shred me after the demo because you decided to demo them anyway and they break. I TOLD YOU not to do that, and why. Data: QA worst nightmare. My last position I would get two test records to test against 20 AC when I first started. I said "Helz no". I built up a catalog of test records I could use, positive and negative, as I progressed because I want multiple records against every AC. Which I often shared with the developers for their unit tests who loved it. QA needs data, all. You give me two records, don't yell at me that coverage isn't thorough. Probably sounded more a rant. But I'm opinionated. Where many QA are not. And these are common issues. Want to improve QA, improve the above.

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It is CRAZY how much weaker OpenAI GPT-4o is at coding from the completions API than GPT-4. I'm not sure if this is the intended result, but very surprising nonetheless. The training recency is very evident, i.e. it knows about much more modern things, but the difference between its logical output is great with GPT-4 just thinking in a much more sophisticated fashion.

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Looking to retain your top software engineers? Here are some strategies to keep them engaged and committed to your team! #SoftwareEngineers #RetentionStrategies

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If you are an investor in developer platforms, dev tools or play a role in building any business competing for developer audiences, then you need to pay close attention. 📣 The good folks at DevRel.Agency are committed to elevating the work of Developer Relations and the profession at large (more news on that later). Take my word for it, for a decade now, they have provided the de-facto data driven insights into the talent fuelling developer focused businesses. 📊 This year the State of Developer Relations Report will be richer than ever.🚀 Stay tuned…📺 #developerrelations #devrel #stateofdevrel #developerplatforms #devtools #executivesearch #lawsonbrooke

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Attention HOAs and Community Managers! FincenFetch allows for board member sign-off, A.I. assisted data checking, easy review processes for your BOI filings. Make sure yours are correct and error-free. #HOA #FincenFetch Learn more about our features https://hubs.la/Q02GnRWJ0

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I think many people in the software industry make the mistake of viewing tech debt like a loan in deferral. They decide to add to their debt assuming there is no short term cost, but one day they will have to start paying it down (or declare bankruptcy with a huge rewrite). A more accurate analogy would compare your tech debt to credit card debt. You immediately start paying for this debt. The minimum payment would barely chip away at the interest accruing. You pay that cost in your project with every feature. The tech debt you add today makes the feature you add tomorrow more difficult. Every work item you take on without addressing the debt will be more difficult, and will likely add to the debt itself. With both analogies, a common end result is crippling debt that grinds your progress to a halt. However, the former analogy assumes that you are making quick progress, when that simply isn't the case. "The only way to go fast, is to go well." - Robert C. Martin

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Can someone explain to me how to get "more experience"? I have 16 years of full stack software engineering experience, mostly in C# .Net 4.2 through 8, including .Net Core 2.x & 3.x, along with WCF, WPF, Winforms, Razor/Blazor, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, with Entity Framework, Dapper, Linq, SQL Server, MySQL, SQLite, Oracle, NoSql, and other databases. And a few of those years include a combination of Java, PHP, and C/C++. I've also used MarkDown, PowerShell, MVC framework, Swashbuckle/Swagger, Newtonsoft, JSON .Net, TopShelf, and a variety of testing frameworks. But apparently that's not enough. In the past 3 years alone, I've learned ReactJS, TypeScript, Xamarin, XAML, Maui, NodeJS, Terraform, AWS, and Azure, and I'm currently learning Angular, but that doesn't cover the 3-5 years of experience jobs want. I've learned some of these skills through jobs, but also some on my own. Except that as often as companies want us to learn these skills outside of work, they only count professional experience when it comes to hiring. My last interview said I needed more experience, as if the previously mentioned 16 years wasn't enough, and neither was the 15 years of computer repair and networking before that, which their interview questions also covered. So if no one is willing to hire because people don't already have experience, how are we supposed to get the experience? And don't say "open source projects", because they don't count as professional experience. Or do I have to take a 50% pay cut to take an "entry level" job that still requires 3-5 years of experience that I somehow still don't have? People are quick to say that "no one wants to work anymore" when they can't get hired, but they never seem to think "businesses aren't willing to teach anymore" when they refuse to hire people. Why? Is it that we are so conditioned to think that it's always the individuals fault for not living up to expectations, instead of the businesses fault for setting unrealistic and ever changing expectations? So, I ask again, how can I get the required experience when employers refuse to hire unless I already have experience?

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Struggling with efficiently managing your software engineers for your company? Wish you had a way to retain your best engineers and get your projects delivered on time? Let’s chat. I’ve built and run several large teams with the highest retention and efficiency in my divisions.

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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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Jake and I sat down and discussed how to avoid failure in your software projects. I think my favorite method for this is the "General Contractor" approach, which leverages a software developer's knowledge of the craft and combines it with the leadership principle of detachment to produce someone who can oversee the software work and ensure it aligns with the business's goals. You can watch a clip of the discussion here: https://lnkd.in/g5J95E2w

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Alright, I used up a 2-week free trial of Cursor IDE. My experience is solid. I think I'll pay $20/m if I don't find anything better. The next ups in my list are: - GitHub copilot - Continue.dev - Cody from Sourcegraph - Tabnine - Zed Which is the best AI coding assistence in your opinion? 🤔 #data #coding #productivity

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An RPG leveling tree for Engineering Managers 🧝🏻‍♀️ You can also check out the SWE and DevOps leveling trees in my previous posts. TPM and QA coming soon.

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When every second counts, your support team needs to respond just as quickly. JSCAPE by Redwood Software offers award-winning support to keep your system safe — because selecting a file transfer provider isn't just about features. It's about knowing they'll have your back during critical moments. Join JSCAPE's upcoming webinar to uncover: ✅ What file transfer vulnerabilities are hiding behind your "secure" features ✅ Why top organizations are moving beyond feature-only security and how you can, too ✅ The overlooked blind spots in most MFT systems that attackers exploit ✅ A behind-the-scenes look at the real strategies successful companies use to prevent breaches 📅 Thursday, December 5 ⏰ 2 PM EST 👉 Register here: https://lnkd.in/eJwnWpWz Don't leave support to chance — join us and learn how to protect your data and ensure your provider stands with you when it matters most. #Webinar #MFT #DataSecurity #FileTransfers #Cybersecurity

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Lately, I'm running into an issue with senior devs not being able to pass coding screens. I'm NOT talking multi-day take home projects or leet code style questions that require dynamic programming. I'm talking the equivalent of fizzbuzz. -- tic tac toe in react -- pulling data from a data store in python -- using types in typescript ... Anyone noticing the same thing? How much prep should a senior dev really need to do these tests?

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If celebrating software maintenance is something you want to do, you should check out the Legacy Code Rocks conference MenderCon on May 16th! I’ll be giving the opening keynote: “Community Is Just as Important as Code” Registration link is in the comments.

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