Jeff Swensen Hot takes and mistakes

Posts

How to run a tech debt assessment

Running assessments of your team’s current tech debts and turning them into actionable solutions should be a regular part of your work. There’s plenty of content out there to convince you why tech debt should be addressed regularly, so I will assume you’re reading this because you already agree. This post will describe one method I’ve used for conducting these assessments and review which parts worked well and which still need improvement.

Emergency Funds, Savings Rates & Home Ownership

When people think about saving for their first home, the focus is always on the down payment. While a sizeable down payment is a worthwhile goal, by itself it isn’t a great indicator of home ownership readiness. There are two related metrics you should be tracking when deciding if you can afford to buy a home: emergency fund size and the rate at which you can refill your emergency fund.

Successful Hiring

What are the best indicators of a developer’s ability to contribute meaningful work to your organization?

Be Explicit

Too often code is written with little empathy towards those who will follow us and need to understand, modify and replace it. After the functional priorities (correct, stable, testable, etc.) your highest priority should be writing readable code that is easy to understand. Let’s look at a simple example.