[jacobian.org] capturing interview results, two notes on software development, and writing with copilot
Hello, Jacob here. Thanks for subscribing to my newsletter.
My posts
Here's what I published on my blog recently:
Capturing interview results
First up, a couple of pieces on interview practice. I've written extensively before about interviewing, but I hadn't yet covered how the results of an interview get captured. So I covered that in two articles:
1️⃣📝 Taking notes in interviews — if you're going to get good data out of interview, you need to take good notes. I wrote about my techniques for notetaking, including sharing an example of what my notes look like.
2️⃣📝 Post-interview recommendations: a case against 'maybe' — after the interview, you need to make a recommendation to the hiring manager. If you're ever an interviewer on a role I'm hiring for, I'm going to insist that the recommendation begins with a very clear "hire" or "no hire". I won't accept any form of "maybe". Here's why…
Two short notes on software development
Next, a couple of shorter articles about the practice of writing software:
1️⃣📝 Quality Is Systemic: software quality is more the result of a system designed to produce quality, and not so much the result of individual performance. That is: a group of mediocre programmers working with a structure designed to produce quality will produce better software than a group of fantastic programmers working in a system designed with other goals.
2️⃣📝 Is this a parable about software development? — you tell me...
Writing With Copilot
Finally: I've been using Copilot as a writing assistant lately. I wrote how helpful I'm finding it, and about the ethics of using a tool like this.
Elsewhere...
🔗 Simon Willison: Stable Diffiusion is a Really Big Deal — towards the end of this article about Stable Diffusion, Simon discusses the ethics of this latest crop of AIs (Stable Diffusion, GPT-3, Whisper, etc.). His metaphor of "AI veganism" is a powerful one, and one I've been thinking quite a bit about. Like Simon, I'm going to continue to use AIs ... for now ... but I don't feel entirely great about the ethics. I may eventually decide I need to abstain.
🔗 Will Larsen: Downturn Career Decisions — it seems relatively likely that we're heading into a legit recession. I'm already seeing the signs in tech: VC funding drying up, rounds of layofs, companies cutting FY23 funding, etc. Will's article from last summer is good reading now. His advice to generally aim to stay put during hard times is good advice.
🔗 Stay SaaSy: How to Run a Department — executive management requires a whole new set of skills compared to lower levels, but precious little gets written about it. This is a great introduction.