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I started Developer Tea in 2015 to help engineers find clarity, perspective, and purpose in regular short bursts of high-value content.

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Your System is Perfectly Designed for Your Current Outcomes

This episode introduces the potentially controversial principle that your system is perfectly designed for its current outcomes. Embrace greater responsibility for systemic issues. We explore how to redefine system boundaries to holistically integrate all influencing factors, like talent and organisational processes, ensuring that interventions are effective and targeted.

Published: 7/3/2025
Length: ~18m
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Using LLMs To Expand Your Working Vocabulary

This episode explores the fundamental mindset of building your vocabulary, extending beyond literal words to conceptual understanding and mental models, and how Large Language Models (LLMs) can be a powerful tool for expanding and refining this crucial skill for career growth, clarity, and navigating disruptions.

Published: 6/25/2025
Length: ~13m
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Great Reviews and Terrible Tacos - Sharpening Substitute Questions with Counterfactuals

This episode delves into the use of substitute questions—simpler queries we use to answer more complex ones—and the crucial concept of cohesion between these substitutes and our true objectives. You'll learn how to leverage counterfactual thinking to scrutinize your assumptions and enhance the effectiveness of your decisions. Discover two powerful counterfactual techniques: asking "what else could be true?" to reveal alternative explanations, and employing thought experiments to precisely define your desires and career aspirations. The discussion offers practical applications, from refining hiring processes by identifying high-cohesion interview criteria to avoiding confirmation bias in debugging. By adopting counterfactual thinking, you can significantly improve your analytical skills, make more informed choices, and build robust strategies.

Published: 6/18/2025
Length: ~23m
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Why Maintenance Matters Now - Construal Level Theory, Marshmallows, and Hyperbolic Discounting

This episode explores why maintenance tasks, despite their fundamental importance, are often neglected or deprioritised in our daily lives and professional work. It delves into the psychological biases that make consistent maintenance challenging, such as hyperbolic discounting, where immediate gratification is valued over future gains, and the construal level theory, which highlights how psychological distance makes preventative work less impactful. The concept of the "maintenance paradox" is introduced, explaining that when maintenance is done well, its benefits go unnoticed, diminishing the sense of reward. The episode encourages listeners to adopt a maintenance mindset, making these tasks a standard habit rather than relying on typical prioritisation structures, as they are crucial for enhancing the quality of overall experiences and preventing future, more urgent problems.

Published: 6/13/2025
Length: ~23m
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Follow This Principle - Establish Your Baselines

This episode introduces a profound yet simple principle: knowing your baselines. This concept is crucial for effectively detecting and measuring change in your life and career.

Published: 6/5/2025
Length: ~8m
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Advice on Advice - Taking Everything with a Grain of Salt

This episode explores the complex landscape of receiving advice in your career, particularly during uncertain times. It offers insights on how to critically evaluate feedback and external information, prepare for potential negative outcomes outside of your control, and adapt your focus to thrive in a changing industry.

Published: 5/22/2025
Length: ~14m
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Career Advice for Surviving AI Outsourcing

This episode addresses the fear surrounding industry changes, such as AI and potential outsourcing, and offers actionable advice for engineers, managers, and leaders to navigate these challenges. You'll learn why shifting your focus from just developing skills to embracing ownership and responsibility is crucial for long-term career resilience and agency.

Published: 5/15/2025
Length: ~13m
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Take Back Your Time - Volatility, Pliability, and Agency and Your Obligations.mp3

This episode provides tactical ways to own your time, reduce meeting load and obligations, and regain agency, especially when feeling burnt out. You'll learn how to use a simple two-part model focusing on Pliability and Volatility to evaluate your tasks and meetings and make intentional choices about how you spend your time.

Published: 5/1/2025
Length: ~15m
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Iteration or Target State Planning

This episode explores the dichotomy between iterative planning and target state planning in software development, discussing the benefits and drawbacks of each approach and providing decision factors to help you choose the most appropriate method for your situation.

Published: 4/24/2025
Length: ~15m
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Three Principles of Preparedness - Mitigate Risks and Capitalize On Opportunities

This episode delves into practical principles for navigating the unexpected in your life and career. Rather than attempting to predict specific events, the focus is on cultivating resilience and optionality by identifying vulnerabilities in your systems and adopting a proactive mindset to transform potential challenges into strategic advantages.

Published: 4/17/2025
Length: ~15m
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Did I Get That Right? - A High Leverage Habit that Requires Virtually Zero Skill

This episode introduces a **simple yet highly effective communication habit that can be adopted by anyone to significantly reduce the risk of misunderstandings and enhance connection**. It explores how this practice, which requires thoughtful communication but no special skills, can benefit individuals at all career levels.

Published: 4/11/2025
Length: ~13m
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Meta Models - Logarithmic Returns

This episode introduces a valuable meta-tool for understanding the generic shapes of models, focusing specifically on the concept of **logarithmic relationships** and how they manifest as **diminishing returns** in various aspects of our lives and work. Understanding these patterns can help us make more informed decisions about where to invest our time and resources.

Published: 4/2/2025
Length: ~12m
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Dimensional Reframing - Think Along a New Axis

This episode introduces the concept of **dimensional reframing** as a tool to gain new perspectives on problems and facilitate decision-making by considering a new dimension.

Published: 3/26/2025
Length: ~13m
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Chesterton's Fence - Why You Should Think Twice Before Rewriting That Project

This episode explores the concept of **Chesterton's fence**, a principle that advises against removing or altering something without first understanding its original purpose.

Published: 3/21/2025
Length: ~9m
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Reframing Areas of Growth to Your Manager

This episode discusses how to reframe areas of growth identified in performance reviews with your manager, turning potential weaknesses into strategic strengths. It emphasizes focusing on excelling in your existing strengths rather than spreading efforts thinly across all areas of improvement.

Published: 3/12/2025
Length: ~12m
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Owning and Requesting Forward-Framed Feedback

This episode provides a tactical question to elicit useful feedback by taking responsibility for seeking it out and framing the request in a way that encourages advice rather than judgment.

Published: 3/5/2025
Length: ~9m
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Work Modes Using Autonomy and Definition Clarity Quadrant - Manager Frameworks and Tools Series

This episode introduces a simple quadrant tool to visualise different working modes that a team or individual task might be in, based on levels of autonomy and definition.

Published: 2/27/2025
Length: ~16m
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Manager Frameworks and Models - Product Lifecycle Governance

This episode introduces **product lifecycle governance**, offering practical techniques for engineering managers to tackle challenges like backlog prioritisation and leadership misunderstandings, helping turn potential problems into strategic advantages.

Published: 2/24/2025
Length: ~14m
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Philosophical Frameworks that Inform Your Decisions (Without You Even Knowing It)

This episode explores philosophical frameworks—ontology, teleology, and dynamism—to inform decision-making in uncertain situations, providing practical advice for applying these concepts in your professional and personal life.

Published: 2/17/2025
Length: ~25m
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How Can You Prepare for High-Impact Unknown Events?

This episode includes practical techniques to prepare for the unexpected by identifying vulnerabilities and building resilience, using the "curse question" and the "assumption audit" to help you turn potential problems into strategic advantages.

Published: 2/8/2025
Length: ~25m
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Developer Tea was a part of Spec and is hosted by Jonathan Cutrell, engineering manager at Guild Education.