The Rabbit Hole: The Definitive Developer's Podcast

Financial security, building working relationships, having a positive impact on the people around you; which of these examples resonates with the way you find meaning in your work? It could be one of them, or all or them, or you may have completely different sources of meaning. In today’s episode, my guest, Sophie Creutz, and I, share how we personally find meaning in the work that we do, and why we believe this to be a very important topic. Google recently did some research on the subject too, so we also share some of those findings. Tune in today to hear it all!

Leading up to today’s discussion, we have talked about the psychological safety, and dependability of the Aristotle Project. Today, we tackle structure and clarity. We discuss a statement that lists understanding of job expectations, the process for fulfilling them, and knowing the consequences of one’s performance as important pillars for team effectiveness. We unpack OKR goal setting, how this enables individuals flexibility in choosing how to reach a predetermined goal, how OKRs can add structure and clarity around roles and responsibilities, and how setting team OKRs can create a danger of ‘bike shedding’, which isn’t a problem in individual OKR setting. We close with the suggestion that each person writes their own OKRs in order to create even more structure and clarity around their job expectations. We hope you join us today!

Safety in an office environment might not be something most people think about. Unlike working in a job that requires manual labor, dangers in an office are less visible. That does not make them more serious. In today’s episode, we discuss psychological safety and what this entails. There is a range of definitions for the concept, but it should be underpinned by mutual respect and acceptance. We discuss what happens when this is lacking in the workplace and then also delve into what you can do to foster it. Being open, vulnerable, and willing to show that you do not know everything goes a long way. Tune in to hear it all!

On a whole, the pandemic has made us, as a society, more anxious about a lot of things, including working in offices with other people where our risk of being exposed to the coronavirus is heightened. Although there are a lot of great tools which have been developed to try to make home offices mirror actual offices, there are various benefits which come from working in the same space as other people which cannot be replicated online. Nevertheless, working from home, at least some of the time, may continue to be part of our reality well into the future.

In this episode, we delve into the world of feedback in software development. We explore how feedback, in the context of Extreme Programming (XP) values, goes beyond traditional human communication. We uncover the various sources of feedback, from pair programming to CI/CD pipelines, and how it plays a pivotal role in improving code quality and project management.