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How to Reduce Onboarding Costs by Using a Code Repository

Onboarding new developers into a project is a time-demanding and costly process, isn’t it? Just finding a proper specialist isn’t sufficient. We all know that every software development company has its own practices and uses its own tools. And those tools might even be in-house developed.

Therefore, it doesn't matter how skilled and experienced your new team member is, they will need to learn a lot. Sometimes, it takes pretty much time for them to learn all about the project they start working on (to start coding new features, for example), about the company’s corporate culture, and the commonly accepted practices and processes. Needless to mention the extensive documentation, and similar. 

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Move Fast, Break Things & Win: How Facebook Builds Software

Founder, professional poker player, podcaster and author, Jeff Meyerson, "broke his brain" to bring you the inside-story of Facebook.

Interviewing more than two dozen Facebook engineers, Jeff spent two and a half years writing his new book Move Fast: How Facebook Builds Software. Written from Facebook's own view of their software strategy and tactics, Move Fast explores the product strategy, cultural principles, and technologies that made Facebook the dominant social networking company. 

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How to Hit the Ground Running as CTO/VPE

When starting a new role as a tech executive, it is common to feel slightly disoriented at first. That’s because, in most startups, you’re not going through a ready-made orientation process. More often than not, you have to carve your own path forward without a lot of guidance.

Having aided many CTOs and VPs of Engineering during their onboarding, I have thoughts about this. Your personal onboarding can feel overwhelming, especially when you are taking over an organization that is already up and running. However, once you acknowledge that you are supposed to take charge and organize this for yourself, you should already be better off. Remember, you have agency here. 

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Developer First Culture and Collectives at Stack Overflow

If you’ve ever written code you’ve probably heard of Stack Overflow.

Most of us have learned from them or shared knowledge on their site. They’ve also got one of the most inclusive and positive engineering cultures out there.

On this week's episode of Dev Interrupted I bring on Ben Matthews, Director of Engineering at Stack Overflow, to give us the inside scoop on Stack's operations, teams and company culture. Ben also discusses their newest product launch - Collectives - and why he thinks they will be a game changer for dev teams.  

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How We Used Arctype to Improve User Onboarding

Guiding Users to an 'A-ha' Moment

In 2020, ex-FB exec Chamath Palihapitiya shared his secret for growing Facebook to its first billion users. He had a laser focus on only 3 goals: getting users in the door, getting users to experience core value as fast as possible, and delivering core value as often as possible.

We wanted to see if we could apply these principles at Arctype and recreate the magic that Chamath engineered at Facebook. So last month we focused on the second goal, getting users to experience core value, and we saw some impressive results.

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Onboarding for Software Engineers

There has probably never been a better time to be a software engineer than right now. Most businesses and organizations across the world make use of technology for their day-to-day operations. For some of these companies, their whole product and business are engrained in their technology usage. Moreover, technology keeps advancing as new technologies and frameworks get released often. Businesses need to keep their technology up to date to remain relevant. Every person with internet access, which eventually will be the whole world, uses lots of apps and websites every day. All this has resulted in a massive demand for people with the skills to build software — the software engineers.

The supply and demand curve for software engineers is not balanced. As it stands, demand is much higher than supply as a truly valuable developer is one of the hardest things to find for companies. If you are involved in recruitment you’ll know what I am talking about: the competition is fierce and qualified candidates are baited from one company to another with promises of free gadgets, gym memberships, equity, remote contract work, loads of time off, and some of the best salaries in the world.

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Tell Your Junior Dev To Do This Before Your Next Stand-Up

“Yesterday I worked on feature X. Today I’m working on feature Y. No blockers.”

Sound familiar? It’s the update your new junior developer gave in the stand-up meeting this morning. You told them not to ramble, but this isn’t really what you had in mind. When you were explaining stand-up 101, you told them to:

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8 Steps to Taking Over an Existing WordPress Website

As a WordPress freelancer or agency, you will have two types of clients: Those who need a new site, and those who have a site that needs management. It is this second type of client that needs a special type of attention. On the surface, an existing site in need of maintenance is a gift. […]