Developer Tea

• Engage in Deliberate Practice to Level Up Your Engineering Leadership Skills

  I want to dive into the concept of Deliberate Practice, which sets the greatest apart in fields ranging from sports to writing to engineering. I’ll explain why it’s much more than just repetition or experience, and why applying it to your career can lead to rapid improvement. Most importantly, I will provide concrete ways you can apply deliberate practice to level up your engineering and leadership skills, especially in areas that are traditionally difficult to practice, such as communication and strategic decision-making.Differentiate Practice from Deliberate Practice: Understand that while repetition is part of practice, deliberate practice specifically involves engaging in a very narrow set of activities with the intentional goal of improvement, requiring very quick feedback for continuous incorporation.Identify Opportunities for Rapid Improvement: Learn why deliberate practice is much more effective at achieving rapid improvement than simply engaging in repetition.Apply DP to Leadership Skills: Discover how to incorporate deliberate practice into roles like engineering manager, tech lead, or IC (Individual Contributor) leader, where the activity of practice is often harder to pinpoint.Leverage Existing Work for Practice: I suggest a mindset shift where you begin looking at existing responsibilities, such as one-on-ones, as opportunities for practice. For example, you can focus on improving your clarity when providing constructive criticism and ask for specific feedback on that aspect.Generate Novel Value Through Practice: Explore how engaging in deliberate practice activities—like recording a video to communicate a technical concept or creating documentation—serves the primary goal of practice, while almost certainly creating unexpected value for your team (often net neutral or positive).Use Backwards Training for Strategy: Find out how to practice strategic decision-making and forecasting by using "backwards training". This involves reviewing past decisions or work scopes, creating your own rationale or estimate, and then calibrating it against the known reality.Simulate Difficult Conversations: Consider leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs) to engage in deliberate practice around language-heavy skills, such as modelling sensitive or difficult topics, or practicing receiving harsh feedback.📮 Ask a QuestionIf you enjoyed this episode and would like me to discuss a question that you have on the show, drop it over at: developertea.com.📮 Join the DiscordIf you want to be a part of a supportive community of engineers (non-engineers welcome!) working to improve their lives and careers, join us on the Developer Tea Discord community by visiting https://developertea.com/discord today!🧡 Leave a ReviewIf you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you.

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• Shift Your Locus of Control to Take Charge of Your Engineering Career

  This episode explores the concept of Locus of Control and why developing a more internal locus of control is beneficial for your career and life. You'll learn the difference between internal and external perspectives, why one is more useful than the other, and practical exercises to shift your mindset to believe you have more influence over the outcomes you care about.Understand Locus of Control: Discover what psychologists mean by locus of control—whether you believe outcomes are determined by your own actions (internal) or by external forces like luck and chance (external).Adopt a More Useful Mindset: Learn why an internal locus of control, while not a perfect reflection of reality, is a more useful and effective mindset for your career, as it prevents you from missing opportunities to influence outcomes.Recognise Your Influence: Find encouragement in the idea that you almost certainly have more influence and control over situations in your life and career than you currently believe.Shift Your Perspective with Practical Exercises: Engage in two research-based exercises to help you recalibrate your default beliefs and intentionally develop a more internal locus of control.Leverage Your Strengths: See how focusing on your strengths can create a positive feedback loop, reinforcing the belief that your efforts directly impact outcomes and helping you build a stronger sense of agency.📮 Ask a QuestionIf you enjoyed this episode and would like me to discuss a question that you have on the show, drop it over at: developertea.com.📮 Join the DiscordIf you want to be a part of a supportive community of engineers (non-engineers welcome!) working to improve their lives and careers, join us on the Developer Tea Discord community by visiting https://developertea.com/discord today!🧡 Leave a ReviewIf you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you.

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• Resumé Driven Development - Your Career is In Your Hands

  In this episode we'll discuss why "Résumé Driven Development" is a powerful mental model for building a thriving career. Instead of seeing your résumé as just a job-hunting tool, you'll learn to use it as a guide for setting measurable, impactful goals that benefit you, your manager, and your company.Focus on Impact, Not Just Tasks: Discover why a great résumé is built on proof of impact, not just a list of completed projects. The best way to improve your career is to focus on achieving measurable goals that demonstrate real value.Have the Goals Conversation: Learn how to initiate a critical conversation with your manager to define measurable goals for your role. If your manager can only provide project deadlines, take the initiative to propose your own impact-oriented goals.Connect Goals to Business Value: Understand the importance of linking your work to business metrics. While there's a risk that a project might not meet its business goals, you can also measure impact through clever technical solutions or process improvements, like reducing team cycle time.Take Control of Your Career: Realise that your career success is ultimately dependent on your own actions. By proactively setting and tracking goals, you take control and can clearly tell the story of the value you bring to the table.📮 Ask a QuestionIf you enjoyed this episode and would like me to discuss a question that you have on the show, drop it over at: developertea.com.📮 Join the DiscordIf you want to be a part of a supportive community of engineers (non-engineers welcome!) working to improve their lives and careers, join us on the Developer Tea Discord community by visiting https://developertea.com/discord today!🧡 Leave a ReviewIf you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you.

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• Forced and Unforced Errors

  In this episode, we introduce a simple yet powerful mental model from the world of sports: forced vs. unforced errors. By understanding this concept, you can shift your focus from things outside your control to the simple, foundational behaviours that truly define a successful career.Understand the Difference: Learn the distinction between forced errors—mistakes caused by chance, situation, or randomness that are hard to prevent—and unforced errors, which are avoidable blunders resulting from a lack of attention or care.Focus on What You Control: Discover why the most successful engineers prioritise reducing their unforced errors. While most people worry about hard-to-predict "forced errors," top performers concentrate on the fundamentals they can directly influence.Identify Your Unforced Errors: Recognise common unforced errors in your career, such as not testing your work, being late for meetings, erratic communication, or posting unprofessional content online. These simple mistakes can significantly impact your career over time.Conduct a Self-Audit: Learn the value of regularly performing a "self-audit" to identify and correct the simple, common-sense things you may be failing at. By improving in these areas, you can dramatically increase your reliability and competitiveness.🙏 Today's Episode is Brought To you by: Wix StudioDevs, if you think website builders mean limited control—think again. With Wix Studio’s developer-first ecosystem you can spend less time on tedious tasks and more on the functionalities that matters most:Develop online in a VS Code-based IDE or locally via GitHub.Extend and replace a suite of powerful business solutions.And ship faster with Wix Studio’s AI code assistant. All of that, wrapped up in auto-maintained infrastructure for total peace of mind. Work in a developer-first ecosystem. Go to wixstudio.com📮 Ask a QuestionIf you enjoyed this episode and would like me to discuss a question that you have on the show, drop it over at: developertea.com.📮 Join the DiscordIf you want to be a part of a supportive community of engineers (non-engineers welcome!) working to improve their lives and careers, join us on the Developer Tea Discord community by visiting https://developertea.com/discord today!🧡 Leave a ReviewIf you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you.

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• View Your Productivity Through the Lens of Values and Priorities

  In this episode, we introduce two fundamental thought experiments to help you uncover your true priorities and core values. By exploring scenarios of scarcity and abundance, you'll learn to align your daily actions with what truly matters, leading to a more satisfied career and life.Uncover Your Priorities: Engage in a "5% exercise" where you imagine only being able to complete a tiny fraction of your to-do list. This thought experiment leverages a scarcity mindset to reveal your genuine priorities, helping you distinguish between what you perceive as important and what truly is.Discover Your Values: Participate in an "abundance exercise" by imagining all your obligations are met and you have complete autonomy. What you choose to do next in this state reflects your core values and helps you move beyond aspirational or culturally normative answers.Go Deeper: Learn to challenge superficial answers when identifying your values, pushing beyond the obvious to find unique and potentially surprising insights that genuinely guide your decision-making.Unify for Satisfaction: Explore the profound insight that the most likely path to a satisfied career and life comes from unifying your priorities and values, thereby avoiding actions that don't align with what truly matters to you.📮 Ask a QuestionIf you enjoyed this episode and would like me to discuss a question that you have on the show, drop it over at: developertea.com.📮 Join the DiscordIf you want to be a part of a supportive community of engineers (non-engineers welcome!) working to improve their lives and careers, join us on the Developer Tea Discord community by visiting https://developertea.com/discord today!🧡 Leave a ReviewIf you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you.

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Altri podcast di Economia

Podcast di tendenza in Economia

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