"Let them eat cake" or "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche" in french is the inaccurate phrase attributed to Marie-Antoinette [1755-1793]
to show the social distance between working classes and the nobility.
Similar phrases:
Madame Victoire [1733-1799] "Oh God, if they could resign themselves to eating the crust of pâté!".
"The Book of Jin, a 7th-century chronicle of the Chinese Jin Dynasty, reports that when Emperor Hui (259–307) of Western Jin was told that his people were starving because there was no rice, he said: Why don't they eat porridge with (ground) meat?"
[Source]
There are similar patterns today about that ("History repeats itself").
The main topic of this blog post is 3 non-technical books for Software Engineer / Developer that could be useful for you if you are in the IT area!
Cracking the Coding Interview
This book Cracking the Coding Interview
is popular for Big Tech company interviews (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple) and companies in Silicon Valley.
The first part is a non-technical section where it focuses on the interview process, offer and behavioral questions.
The second part contains about 200 technical interview questions and answers in Java, C and C++
It's a perfect book to prepare for any future interviews (interviewer or interviewee)
Aside (aparté):
I even remember doing an interview for one company and 3 questions were word for word taken from this book.
It shows different topics with Benefits or Drawbacks like:
- Company size (small vs large), freelancing (employee versus freelancer), startup
- Working Remotely survival strategies (time management, self-motivation, ...)
- Career, goals, productivity, habits, advice
- Financial, fitness, spirit
There is one quote I really like and apply from this book: "Give away 90% of what you do for free! - I'm a firm believer that 90% of the content you produce should be completely free.
There's nothing wrong with charging money for your hard work, but you'll find the most success when you're giving people solid value mostly for free."
Staff Engineer: Leadership beyond the management track
Topics covered:
- Career ladder (dual track)
- Technical roles / schedules
- Stories / Q&A from Staff Software Engineers like Slack, Dropbox, Uber, ...
One question repeatedly asked from stories is:
"Did you ever consider engineering management, and if so how did you decide to pursue the staff engineer path?"
Some answers:
- "I wouldn't really enjoy that work!"
- "I don't want to be a manager. I love coding too much and I strongly believe that to be a successful manager you should not write code, ..."
- "As a manager you have very explicit responsibilities for things like headcount and performance reviews. Staff engineer responsibilities are really fuzzy and different across companies.
That ambiguity around staff roles leads many folks to make the lateral switch to management who would have been happier staying as an engineer."
This is the path (engineering management) that I will never step in or like Warren Buffet said: "Know your circle of competence, and stick within it!"
Sedona / Scottsdale - Arizona
Here are some pictures from my Arizona trip some days before the lockdown (> 2.5 years ago):
Thanks for reading,
JS.
"When the lie takes the elevator, the truth takes the stairs. It takes longer but it always ends up arriving.»
