Abstract

Five minutes, one slide. I hit ten years in the industry this summer and the lightning-talk slot opened up, so I wrote down the three things I wish I had worried about less and the three I wish I had started on earlier. Not advice so much as a list. Half the room nodded; a couple of people disagreed, which is healthier than I expected.

Outline

What I wish I had worried about less:

  1. Which language my next job would be in. I have now written production code in six and the difference between them is smaller than the difference between companies.
  2. Whether my side projects were “impressive.” The ones I learned the most from looked ridiculous from the outside.
  3. Interview coding problems, past the basics. I have done maybe four in ten years that resembled the grind.

What I wish I had started earlier:

  1. Writing things down publicly. A blog post forces clarity in a way that a wiki entry does not.
  2. Saying no to on-call rotations on teams that had not earned my trust yet.
  3. Learning enough finance to understand my own offer letters.

What I learned giving it

Five minutes is not enough time for any of these points on their own. It is enough time to plant them. The conversations afterwards were more useful than the talk itself. Two separate people asked about the on-call one; I had clearly touched something.

What I’d change

  • Drop to four items instead of six. Two points per side, with one good story each, would have been tighter.
  • Cut the “ten years” framing entirely; it made it sound more authoritative than it was, and I have friends with twenty years who would gently roll their eyes.
  • Bring a single prop, even for five minutes. A cheap printed zine with the full list would have been a nice takeaway.

Related posts: /posts/error-wrapping-conventions-i-settled-on/, /posts/moving-a-service-from-go-to-rust-an-honest-report/.

Not recorded. The venue is a back-room of a coffee shop and the ambient noise is brutal on any mic that close.