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Jan 2025
31m 10s

Episode 444: Surrounded by apathetic cow...

JAMISON DANCE AND DAVE SMITH
About this episode

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

  1. After a decade as a Senior front-end engineer in companies stuck in legacy ways of working—paying lip service to true agility while clinging to control-heavy, waterfall practices—I’m frustrated and exhausted by meetings and largely apathetic, outsourced teams who don’t match my enthusiasm for product-thinking or improving things. It seems allowed and normalised everywhere I go.

    How can I escape this cycle of big tech, unfulfilled as an engineer, and find a team with a strong product engineering culture where I can do high-impact work with similarly empowered teams? Thank you, and sorry if this is a bit verbose! Thanks guys. Martin

  2. How do you judge your competency in a technical skill and when should you include it on your resume? Should you include a skills that you haven’t used in a while, skills you’ve only used in personal projects, or skills that you feel you only have a basic understanding of?

    I’m a frontend developer and I’ve seen some job descriptions include requirements (not nice-to-haves) like backend experience, Java, CI/CD, and UI/UX design using tools like Figma and Photoshop. I could make designs or write the backend code for a basic CRUD app, but it would take me some time, especially if I’m building things from scratch. I’ve seen some resumes where the writer lists a bunch of programming languages and technical skills, and I often wonder if they truly are competent in all of those skills.

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