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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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Prioritization is the Ultimate Skill

Learn to prioritize, and everything else falls into place. This is clarity through perspective and purpose.

Published: 10/4/2024
Length: ~14m
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Career Growth Comes From Finding Low Hanging Fruit in the Gaps

Your career growth will be directly correlated to your ability to solve critical unsolved problems in the gaps of your organization's problems. Focus on finding the problems that have a high chance of success for you specifically - the low hanging fruit.

Published: 9/19/2024
Length: ~9m
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How Culture Might Eat Your Values For Breakfast

In this episode we discuss the delineation between culture and values. What you allow is just as important as what you value.

Published: 9/5/2024
Length: ~14m
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The Tricky Parts of Merit Cycles

The blunt reality: Merit cycles are not how you build your earning power or career. They are a function of company culture and HR, and generally speaking are disconnected from your biggest opportunities for growth. So, where should you focus? That's what we talk about in today's episode.

Published: 8/29/2024
Length: ~26m
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Limiting Factors - The Hidden Focus That Matters the Most

In today's episode we discuss focus, again. This time, through the lens of a few mental models that help us decide what is *actually* the right thing to focus on. You'll learn the real enemy of focus (note: it's not just distraction).

Published: 8/22/2024
Length: ~16m
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Improve Your Chances In Your Engineering Job Search Using the Scientific Method with Brian Pulliam

I'm joined today by Brian Pulliam. I've personally engaged Brian as a career coach. In this discussion we'll talk a bit about coaching, and about how you can set yourself up to become a much better candidate in your job search as an engineering leader.

Published: 8/14/2024
Length: ~86m
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Improve Your Chances In Your Engineering Job Search Using the Scientific Method with Brian Pulliam

I'm joined today by Brian Pulliam. I've personally engaged Brian as a career coach. In this discussion we'll talk a bit about coaching, and about how you can set yourself up to become a much better candidate in your job search as an engineering leader.

Published: 8/8/2024
Length: ~87m
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Focus On Outcomes By Resetting Your Base

In this episode we talk about the concept of "resetting your base" - moving in a direction you don't necessarily want to go in order to achieve better outcomes in the long run.

Published: 8/2/2024
Length: ~19m
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Portraying Confidence in the Face of the Unknown

In today's episode we discuss how you might build your confidence without being disingenuous. This isn't a lesson in psychology or tricks - it's about building true confidence in what you do (and importantly, don't) know.

Published: 7/24/2024
Length: ~17m
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Now, Next, Later, Never - A Simple Daily Framework for Managing Information and Prioritization

In today's episode, we'll discuss an absolutely simple structure for prioritization and information flow in your daily work. The flow relies on a basic text editor - that's it!

Published: 7/17/2024
Length: ~26m
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Bias to Action As A Skill

You have seen "bias to action" on job requirements, but what does this really mean? Is it something that can be learned? Make sure you know the difference between this skill and a more automatic cognitive bias.

Published: 7/5/2024
Length: ~13m
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Managing Using Core Indicators of Team Outcomes

In this episode, we use the Start / Stop / Continue framework in a new way. As leaders, we should always know what outcome indicators a given discussion is based on. In this episode, we discuss the three core outcome indicators for managers to pay close attention to.

Published: 6/3/2024
Length: ~14m
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Inverted Thinking As a Strategy To Combat Bias

In today's episode, we talk about inversion and inverted thinking. This is a mental model inspired by considering the "negative space" instead of the space occupied by the thing you are seeking. For example, if you are trying to avoid failure, you might intuitively seek a "successful strategy" instead of looking at the reasons it may fail directly. Inversion will help you avoid these traps.

Published: 5/15/2024
Length: ~7m
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Talking To Yourself for Better One-On-Ones

In today's episode we discuss a preparation step for your next one-on-one. Don't just wing it - do your homework... and talk to yourself a little bit.

Published: 5/8/2024
Length: ~11m
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Interview Prep: Two Counterintuitive Tips

In today's episode we'll discuss some counterintuitive advice for your interviews. This advice applies in interview settings, but also applies in 1-1 meetings as well.

Published: 5/1/2024
Length: ~22m
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The Top Resumé Mistake I See, Plus the Best Resumé Advice I've Ever Received

After today's episode, your resumé is going to get better! In this episode I will share the biggest mistake and the best advice I've ever received about building a great resumé. This will take some work from you, but I hope you walk away from this episode feeling like you have the right mindset to improve your resumé drastically, and land more interviews, ultimately leading to better job opportunities for the Developer Tea audience!

Published: 4/25/2024
Length: ~18m
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Prioritization Using Critical Path Thinking

In today's episode, we talk about the counterintuitive process of prioritizing based on critical path. This is not a novel concept that I've invented, but rather a revisiting of the classic discussion started by Eli Goldratt in his book "The Goal", and later in his book "Critical Path", based on the theory of constraints.

Published: 4/23/2024
Length: ~14m
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Cultural Antidotes - Clarity Isn't Just Honesty

The most common mistake for any manager is to fail to clarify. This often happens because we mistake our average communications for having perfect clarity, when in fact we most often don't communicate at high levels of clarity. This isn't because we are bad at communication, but rather because our social communications carry less consequence when they aren't precise. Clarity is not simply being honest. We'll discuss the importance of clarity in this episode, and your first steps towards achieving clarity above the norm.

Published: 4/17/2024
Length: ~14m
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Demystifying Culture and Values

What does your culture have to do with your values? In this episode we open up the discussion about a model of thinking for culture and values to understand how they link, and more importantly, when they don't.

Published: 4/10/2024
Length: ~21m
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Principles of Work - Shorten Your Feedback Loops

Your feedback loops should be short enough that the cost of making a mistake is low enough that the value of the learning in the feedback loop exceeds the magnitude of the cost of a mistake. In other words: shorten your feedback loops to the point that you're no longer afraid to make a mistake.

Published: 4/3/2024
Length: ~18m
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Developer Tea was a part of Spec and is hosted by Jonathan Cutrell, engineering manager at Guild Education.