Blake Gottlieb

There it is, another one. Yup, one more, and when you thought that was it, there’s another. What am I talking about? Promotions.    LinkedIn alerts you to an exciting new chapter in someone’s career—where they proudly share their promotion. It’s not envy or jealousy, but there’s a feeling. A little whisper in your mind that says, "Why not me?" "What am I doing wrong?" "Am I not doing enough?" "Is my performance good enough?" The overthinking begins, and soon enough, you feel demoralized. Sound familiar? It’s natural to have these thoughts, how we respond to them defines our next move. Instead of getting lost, use the 21 Disciplines to transform these moments into powerful opportunities for growth: 1. Embrace Adaptability: Understand that everyone's career path is unique, and changes in direction are normal. Instead of fixating on one route, open yourself to new possibilities and growth opportunities.  2. Foster a Growth Mindset: Promotions aren't the only markers of success. Focus on continuous learning and development, even if the recognition hasn’t come—yet. Growth happens every day, not just in the form of titles. 3. Cultivate Perseverance: Success isn’t always linear. Don’t let one missed opportunity discourage you. Consistency in your effort, attitude, and skill-building will pay off in the long run. Keep pushing forward, even when the path seems steep. 4. Embody Integrity and Honor: Don’t compare your journey to someone else’s. Focus on your values, your contribution, and what you bring to the table. Integrity in your work is the foundation for long-term success. 5. Develop Emotional Intelligence: Recognize the emotions you feel—disappointment, frustration, confusion—and allow yourself to process them. But also take control. Channel those feelings into positive, constructive action rather than letting them pull you down. 6. Practice Strategic Thinking: Use this as an opportunity to reassess your career trajectory. What skills do you need to develop? Who can you network with? What goals need refining? Promotions often go to those who can think ahead and plan their path. 7. Seek Balance and Harmony: Promotions aren’t everything. Make sure your personal goals, well-being, and life outside of work are just as fulfilling. A balanced life is a successful life. 8. Harness the Power of Discipline: Ultimately, discipline is what will carry you through. Stay focused, consistent, and committed to your long-term vision, and don’t be swayed by short-term comparisons. So, when you see that next promotion announcement, don’t spiral into self-doubt. Pause. Refocus. Apply the 21 Disciplines to guide you through.  And remember, your time will come—because you’re building something bigger than just a title.  What strategies do you use when facing these feelings? Let’s discuss how we can all use moments like these to motivate, not discourage. #21Disciplines #CareerGrowth #Leadership #MindsetMatters #ChromeCode #ProfessionalDevelopment

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Like a lot of other SW engineers, I get offers from various companies trying to hire me. Sometimes, in a weak moment, I'll step up to the game and express interest. After the initial interview, I learn that I'll be going through a three to four round hiring process, like really? Do companies realize that they are pulling the short end of the stick in this case, that they are the ones who want something? That virtually all the risk is borne by the object of their interest? If the company and the new employee don't get along for whatever reason, the company goes on with minimal loss, but the employee is out of a job with no income, stuck in a very difficult life situation! I'll never understand this. It is the employee who should hold a four-round selection process in such a case. The other thing is that companies haven't noticed that we've had 30% inflation here over the last few years and they're offering salaries like they did in the pre-Covid days.

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Whew, fellow engineering managers, do we need to talk? We had more yeses to these three questions than either front-line engineers OR execs: 📈 I do not feel the potential for advancement in my current role 🚀 Leadership at my company is out of the loop when it comes to engineering challenges 💥 I do not feel secure in my current role. Pair that with the 69% of EMs who’ve experienced burnout in the past year and it’s enough to make even the best of us look at the engineer/manager pendulum with renewed interest. For me, the saving grace is the big improvements we as an engineering industry have made on informing and driving the business strategy over the decades I’ve been in tech, and wanting to stay in the room where it happens. Check out the 2024 State of Engineering Management to think about where you and your team falls on the trends we're all experiencing firsthand. (And for funsies, you won’t believe which group thinks AI is a gimmick. ✨)

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Great post & insights from Vilas! Practicing what we preach over here at Gitpod

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this meme led to an interesting convo: friend: Borg are perpetually in a build phase. never take a step back to fix the cables. me: That's a lot of technical debt. friend: can you imagine how they just "hack together" a species's technology into their own stack? me: To tech folks, that kind of software assimilation is more frightening than actual assimilation. Imagine if they kept you human just long enough to complete the integration into their Frankenstack. You'd be *begging* to be assimilated.

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DevEx tooling and enablement are essential investments in an engineering organization's budget. This is (hopefully) not news to anyone! But there are 3 other takeaways that resonated with me from the Hangar DX (https://dx.community/) meetup last week organized by Aviator and Slack at the Salesforce HQ - 1 - Adoption - Dev tool adoption varies from one org to another even within the same company. It is especially cumbersome when migration means changing existing processes/rituals. Leadership support is critical and business context is the catalyst that drives rapid change. 2 - Surveys - Surveys seem like a good way to collect and analyze Dev sentiment within engineering orgs regarding state of tooling and enablement. But survey participation can ONLY be guaranteed IF action is swift and effective. Importantly, surveying tend to collect feedback in a partitioned way. e.g. Most organizations do surveys where process/people/management issues are collected in Pulse surveys BUT Dev tooling feedback is collected in DevEx surveys which are not necessarily reconciled against Pulse surveys. 3 - Horizontal orgs for Quality will continue to exist and thrive because the fundamental tradeoff between speed (more features) versus quality/reliability will always mean Devs have a conflict of interest. This reiterates the idea that the "you build it, you own it" (full ownership) is not for an individual but for a team that includes dev, qa, performance engineering etc. thanks to Ankit Jain and Poya Osgouei for the invite and thanks to Sridhar Ramakrishnan for hosting. pic credit - Ankit Jain #dx #devex #developerenablement #quality

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