The Grug Brained Developer is one that always sticks in my head, but didn't make the list (to be fair, maybe more because I already agreed than because it transformed my thinking).
Whenever I run into such a problem I use google (or the web search of your choice). You may not have expected it (and you won't always be this fortunate), but this immediately makes the identity, nature, and meaning of grug evident.
As a manager for a small team myself, I think an important part of the job is to making sure that no one person on that team is irreplaceable -- including yourself.
Vacations are an incredible forcing function for proper documentation, backups, knowledge, whatever. If there's _anyone_ on the team who can't be 100% offline for a week, that's a problem.
The product I work on has a search experience similar to Airbnb's. We initially made the choice to show all-in prices on the initial search screens. Bookings TANKED. Guests called in to complain why our listings are "more expensive on our own site than Airbnb" (they were cheaper at the end of the day, but we weren't hiding fees).
End of the day, we had to switch to Airbnb's fee-hiding style because users are trained to expect the hidden fees.
At work, we've been pushing everyone to use an app called clockwise. Basically it integrates with your calendar, moves meetings around (with your approval) to maximize focus time (2+ hour blocks of work).
It also allows you to set up "Do not disturb" on slack during your focus and meeting time. It's awesome.
(BTW, no personal association with the company, just a happy user).
WanderJaunt | Full stack engineers (and everything else | SF | Full-time | ONSITE
Think of WanderJaunt as a decentralized hotel for short-term rentals.
We're looking for our 8th engineer to help with all parts of the problem space. From creating a first-class guest experience, to routing cleaners throughout the city, to building the data infrastructure to identify the best properties to run in our model.
WanderJaunt provides home owners and travelers with better experiences for fairer prices. For homeowners, we take the hassle out of managing a short-term vacation rental. For travelers, we deliver the consistency and quality of a 5-star hotel at a sharing economy price.
You’ll be the fourth engineer on our rapidly growing team. Help build out our new booking platform, pricing algorithms, inventory management, logistics for housekeeping and more! Django on the backend and Vue on the frontend. Accepting talented engineers of all backgrounds with Django experience especially appreciated!
Our team is currently tackling a few large technical problems including:
- Building our own listing platform
- Creating the tooling that allows our operations team to scale and manage a decentralized hotel
- Optimizing our pricing algorithms to better match supply and demand
- Building tooling to evaluate revenue potential of a homes on the short-term rental market prior to acquisition
To apply or for any questions, contact me (lead engineer) at chris<at>wanderjaunt<dot>com.
WanderJaunt provides home owners and travelers with better experiences for fairer prices. For homeowners, we take the hassle out of managing a short-term vacation rental. For travelers, we deliver the consistency and quality of a 5-star hotel at a sharing economy price.
You’ll be the fourth engineer on our rapidly growing team. Help build out our new booking platform, pricing algorithms, inventory management, logistics for housekeeping and more! Django on the backend and Vue on the frontend. Accepting talented engineers of all backgrounds with Django experience especially appreciated!
To apply or for any questions, contact me (lead engineer) at chris<at>wanderjaunt<dot>com.
It's an enlightening read on addiction that will make you more empathetic for addicts of all types: gambling, substances, shopping, whatever.
Definitely worth a look if you find yourself asking "Why don't they just stop?"
https://www.amazon.com/Realm-Hungry-Ghosts-Encounters-Addict...