From responding to the risk of layoffs, to why you probably shouldn’t rewrite that code. In no particular order, here are the five articles you absolutely need to read from November on LeadDev.
1. Camille Fournier, Five reasons you shouldn’t rewrite that code
Application rewrites can seem like a panacea to many an organizational problem, but as The Manager’s Path author Camille Fournier identifies here: that’s a trap!
“I’m not saying you should never rewrite anything. I have led successful rewrites, so I know that they are possible. But before you agree to the commitment of rewriting, allow me to share five reasons it might be a bad idea,” she writes.
2. Chris Stokel-Walker, How to survive the tech layoffs storm
The technology industry hasn’t seen a wave of job losses like this since the dot-com bubble burst, or maybe when our financial systems crashed in 2008. Here, the journalist Chris Stokel-Walker talks to those affected by those past storms to see what can be learned for anyone currently grappling with industry-wide uncertainty.
“Given how things have been going so far, these are likely to cause less lasting pain to workers in the sector in the US than the first dot-com crash, because at least at this juncture, there are still many other tech companies – both large and small – hiring,” Mar Hicks, Associate Professor for the History of Technology at the Illinois Institute of Technology, told Chris.
3. Lena Reinhard, The three steps to take after you’ve been laid off
Where Chris lays out the situation many people across our industry are facing right now, leadership coach Lena Reinhard takes a step back to lay out the steps everyone should take if disaster were to strike.
“Being laid off, as well as applying and interviewing for jobs, can be intense experiences and consume a lot of your time and energy. They may also trigger doubts about your skills and gnaw at your confidence. Throughout this process it is vital to maintain your connection with your community. And, most of all, take care of yourself,” she writes.
4. Dmitry Vinnik, Fixing broken windows: How to deal with legacy systems
Maintaining legacy systems is an ever-present problem for engineers. In this article, Dmitry Vinnik, a Lead Developer Advocate at Meta, explains why it’s important to ensure that small “broken windows” don’t develop into fully-fledged cracks in your systems.
“If we let these small breaks, these “window cracks,” into an application, the app will soon be completely broken,” he writes.
5. Liz Fong-Jones, How to bring order to chaos engineering
Chaos engineering principles have been around for over a decade now, but that doesn’t mean every organization is ready to put them into practice. In this article, Liz Fong-Jones, Field CTO at Honeycomb, explains how to safely bring chaos into your life.
“Before you board the chaos engineering car, make sure that you’re adequately prepared, and that you can afford to spend the engineering resources to enter the theme park in the first place,” Fong-Jones writes.
