Tag: promotions

The Diving Save

Angela quit. She walked in on a Monday morning, went straight into Alex’s office, resignation letter in hand, and said, “I have a great offer from another company that I’ve accepted. My last day is a week from Friday.” Alex reacted. After listening to Angela’s resignation, he told her simply and clearly, “I know you… more

April 20, 2014 10 Comments

Titles are Toxic

You have a job and it has a name. A name of convenience. It exists so that when someone asks, “What do you do?” you can simply say, “I am a software engineer” rather than saying, “Well, there are these things called computers and computers run software and humans write software and I am one… more

March 19, 2013 37 Comments

The Culture Chart

They played bridge every Wednesday at Netscape. In the middle of the cafeteria. Like clockwork. The players were a collection of ex-SGI guys and they worked for a variety of different groups at the company, but as I learned a few months later, this core group of men quietly defined the engineering culture of the… more

October 12, 2008 10 Comments