February 11th: How to Be a Better Engineer
InRhythm’s mission, in the work we do and the people we hire, is acutely focused on learning and growth. Through the development of InRhythmU, our internal professional growth initiative, we’re developing programs to ensure that our engineers reach the level of technical ability required by our clients. Being a great engineer involves more than keeping up with tech trends or mastering a framework, however.
We want to create bar-raisers who take our client relationships to the next level. The real goal is to train engineers who can approach engineering problems strategically and make good choices in a world of infinite options. As we develop this system of skill building and growth, a few key questions emerge. How do junior engineers learn to become senior engineers? How much technical ability should a UI designer aim for? Should every member of the team understand user experience design? Database design? What does “full-stack engineer” really mean? And what’s our role in building the next generation of software?
This month we dive into these issues, led by senior InRhythm engineer Brian Olore, whose article “Becoming a Senior Engineer” clearly lays out some tips, tricks, and time-tested strategies that will help you raise that bar.
Tell us what you think separates good engineers from great ones—or shout out any great engineers you know (we’re hiring!)—@GetInRhythm or here on the InRhythmU blog.
Thanks and Keep Growing,
Gunjan Doshi
CEO, InRhythm
Becoming a Senior Engineer
(4 min. read)
“Looking to take your engineering career to the next level? These five tips will set you on the path to greater things and make you a standout in the field. As we all know, it’s not easy to be exceptional in this already-competitive field, but the reward for real leadership is high, and if you’re truly passionate about your craft, these tips—including mentorship and open source contributions—will be something to get excited about.”
What We’re Reading Around the Web
The Great Divide
(14 min. read)
CSS-Tricks
“In this provocative article, Chris Coyer lays out why he thinks there’s a rift growing in the development community. The fault line? JavaScript. On one side are those who believe a ‘front-end engineer’ must be skilled with the language, while the other side feels ‘cosmically far away from the articles and conversations around accessibility, semantic markup, CSS possibilities, UX considerations, and UI polish, among others.’ Coyer quips: ‘Two front-end developers are sitting at a bar. They have nothing to talk about.’ False dichotomy? Industry impasse? You decide.”
Designing for the Web Ought to Mean Making HTML and CSS
(4 min. read)
Signal V. Noise
“Et tu, JavaScript? ‘The industry is making it too hard to work directly with the web’ says Ruby On Rails creator, best-selling author, and racecar driver(!) David Heinemeier Hansson. Never one to shy away from controversy, DHH (as he is known) calls out the industry’for polluting our thinking with over-engineered frameworks and toolkits while ignoring the raw value of “native” web technologies like HTML and CSS (and JavaScript) and the opinions of designers who work with them: ‘The towering demands inherent in certain ways of working with JavaScript are rightfully scaring some designers off from implementing their ideas at all. That’s a travesty.’ Is the soft bigotry of low expectations degrading the quality of our teams? Is knowledge of JavaScript non-negotiable for ‘front-end engineers’?”
HTML, CSS and Our Vanishing Industry Entry Points
(6 min. read)
Rachel Andrew
“It ain’t easy bein’ green. The leadership team at InRhythm spends a great deal of time improving the way we attract, train, and retain talent. Many of our hires are relatively new to this industry; Rachel Andrew has been thinking about what those new entries into this field face, worried that we’re excluding many people unnecessarily, especially those without formal training. What about those who learn ‘on the job,’ view source and copy, or futz around with a GitHub repo and learn on their own? Aren’t ambitious people to be valued? Didn’t the web grow so rapidly and profitably specifically because barriers to entry didn’t exist? ‘If we make it so that you have to understand programming to even start, then we take something open and enabling, and place it back in the hands of those who are already privileged.’ There may be implications here for society, and freedom; Andrew’s larger point is worth considering.”
What Happened to the Internet?
(11 min. read)
thinkgrowth.org
“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers. We’ve been told that technology companies value those who ‘Think Different.’ Is that still true on the Internet? Jared Sumner reminds us of a time when the web was ‘weird and fun,’ and we liked it! Is coding now a privilege, instead of a right? Wasn’t this technology supposed to be a great equalizer, rather than an opportunity to be monopolized by tech giants? Following this line of thinking and going deeper, Meghan Keaney Anderson asks us whether ‘what was once the closest thing we could imagine to a meritocracy more closely resembles an oligarchy ruled by a few powerful gatekeepers.’ Food for thought.”