Blog

TLDR:

• I reflect back on 2025 and share some of my highlights, observations, and thoughts about the future.

TLDR:

Here are 10 characteristics of what I feel makes a bad software engineer.

1. Takes unreasonably long to complete assignments
2. Has poor communication skills
3. Does not write unit tests or does not know how to write meaningful tests
4. Assigns meaningless or incorrect names to variables and functions
5. Does not have strong opinions about the product they work on
6. Asks for help without first trying to debug the problem
7. Always waits to be told the solution to a problem
8. Does not actively participate in code reviews
9. Does not test or use their team's application beyond their localhost environment
10. Does not do personal coding projects outside of work

In the article, I offer advice for each bullet point above.

TLDR:

• Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs) are a widely-used, yet generally disliked process. Companies use them in order to formally try to improve underperforming employees. If that doesn't pan out, then PIPs also serve as documentation and justification for terminating said employees.
• Performance Improvement Plans mistakenly assume that a manager is even still interested in trying to coach/improve an underperforming employee at the time that the PIP is written and put in place.
• If you're a manager that's required to go through a PIP process before being able to terminate an underperforming employee, then it's better to start the PIP as soon as it's clear to you that the employee might not be cut out for the job. Don't wait until the point where you already want to fire them.

TLDR:

My friend Jay Spiwak and I are currently in the process of recording a new version of our song "Drive" from our band that we had back in high school. Stay tuned as we'll be releasing the song to streaming services soon!