Author: Tony Tam
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Proposal – Tech mentorship success / failure – Part 3
(follow up to part 2 of tech mentorship) What does a success mentorship look like? Both mentor and mentee are getting something out of the experience. They meet regularly, or the mentee feels free to reach out when they have issues/questions to work out. They hold themselves accountable to each other, if their are action…
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Proposal for tech mentorship v2
Continue from Part 1 https://tonytam.org/2019/04/07/proposal-for-technical-mentorship-draft-1/ Target audience : P2, P3, P4 Guidelines for matching : 2 levels separation Why be a mentee ? Ask question of someone who have been where you are at, give you a perspective that you normally don’t see, spend time with you to help you grow technically in a safe…
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Proposal for technical mentorship (draft 1)
The goal of this proposal is to define how we build a culture of career growth for our technical staff in any individual contributor level. During the career of a software engineers, several key factors contributes to their career growth Innate skills and self motivation The type of projects they are exposed to and have…
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Thank me when you are 30
One my favorite movie scenes is when Sydney P., in the movie”Guess who is coming to dinner?” said to his father, something like “It’s your job to raise me, you brought me into this world”. “When it’s my time, I will do the same for my children”. There is no need for children to thank…
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My advice to you, dear daugther
Dear daughter, For your 18th birthday, and on my 48th year, I wish to write down something for you to refer back to in the next 30 years. I wish to tell you a few simple thoughts to help you to build a life for yourself that 30 years later, you would look back and…
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Identity as a father
For the last 18 years, my identity is primarily a father and a software engineer. My daughter is going to be 18 years old in a few days and I wanted to remind myself that a large part of my identity is not lost, but changed. In order for her to be a fully formed…
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Book: Atomic Habits
I loved this book and will keep and re-read again in a year. Each chapter is about 10 pages, which fits very nicely with my “read 10 pages of a book” habit in the morning. It gives a little bit of science with each advice given on how to build long lasting good habits and…
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Withdraw symtoms of the smartphone
(The photo is of a parking ticket paying machine, it wants to do a lot in terms of payment, but very confusing) Last week, I decided to leave my smartphone at my desk with only a sharp pencil and my notebook. Yes, I did feel more engaged during the meeting, but I also felt like…
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Pride, fear and stubbornness
This week I checked myself during a conversation where I let my own pride, fear and stubbornness get in the way of hearing the opinion of someone else. My fear of doing something uncomfortable. My pride of asking for help. My stubbornness in thinking that my way is the only correct path forward. I accept…
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Prioritizing with difficulty x cost x quantity = value??
Could it be that simply to calculate the value of my backlog at work? I once heard on a podcast that a simple way for a startup founder to prioritize all the product backlog in order to focus is via a spreadsheet and do hard ranking. Difficulty x cost x quantity == value? While…