Fabio Cicerchia - Issue #134
👋 Hi, this is Fabio with the biweekly issue of the DevPath Newsletter.
Each issue delivers curated content for engineers and leaders in tech,
ideal for busy people as it gives an extract of the latest news and trends.
Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.
— Edward Morgan Forster
Architecture
Kubernetes Infrastructure At Medium
Reading time: 7 mins
Kubernetes has a ton of complexity, and has an unlimited number of possible configurations based on an organization’s needs. At Medium, we have a lot of pride around how well we’ve been able to shape Kubernetes to our own needs. That doesn’t take away from how excited we are to explore new ways to enhance our infrastructure, while making use of new technologies that help us improve reliability and scalability along the way.
Career
When promotions become punishment
Reading time: 3 mins
The world is full of talented, capable people who'd rather put their own efforts to direct use than manage others. But the natural inclination is to promote senior contributors up a managerial ladder, and out of the trenches. This often ends poorly, turning the promotion into a punishment.
It's usually not that these potential managers don't like working with others. Quite the contrary. I've found that nothing motivates ambitious people like working close together with other talented individuals. It's also usually not that they're uncomfortable being senior, in terms of setting a direction for the work. It's that they don't want the responsibility, and associated guilt, that comes with managing others. Especially when there's a need for correction.
Health
Perfectionism, Impostor Syndrome and Anxiety
Watching time: 48 mins
Working in the tech industry can sometimes make us feel inferior. It is easy to start believing that everyone knows more, or finds the work easier. When we’re surrounded by so many clever people, how help but judge ourselves against them and our work against theirs? Impostor syndrome - the belief that you don’t deserve to be where you are, and perfectionism - a need to work to impossibly high standards, are exhausting. Learn how to spot these destructive thought patterns in yourself, how to manage anxiety and procrastination and how to start being kinder to yourself, because you’re awesome!
Methodologies
Backlog Refinement Cards: Use the Benefits of Gamification for Backlog Refinement
Reading time: 5 mins
In the landscape of Agile software development, backlog refinement stands as a cornerstone of project success. This process, which involves the prioritization, often estimation and decomposition of work into manageable pieces, is fundamental for effective sprint planning and efficient project execution. An innovative tool known as the Backlog Refinement Cards has been created to give a new gamified option to this process. Designed to decrease the complexity and size of backlog items before implementation, these cards are a game-changer in enhancing project predictability.
Productivity
How To Become a 10x Dev: An Essential Guide
Reading time: 18 mins
Software development is a team sport. Your individual performance doesn't matter as much as the performance of your whole team and company.
By improving how you work, you only ADD to your team's performance. By improving how everyone works, you MULTIPLY your team's performance.
Multiplying the whole team's performance will put you on a much faster lane for being noticed and promoted than being a crazy efficient individual contributor.
Boosting other people's performance requires a different mindset and approach than boosting your individual performance. In this article, I'll show you 16 proven ways to multiply your team's performance (or even the whole company).
Resources
A slack clone in 5 lines of bash
Reading time: 20 mins
This paper shows how suc implements those features. suc stays small by leveraging the consistent and composable primitives offered by modern UNIX implementations.
Thank you for making it to the end! 🤗
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Have a great week 😉