Author: Aleks
How to Protect Job During Layoffs – Tips for Engineers and Developers
Layoffs slowed down in 2024, but it is still a painful topic in the tech job market. Things are tough, it is essential to maximize your chances of protecting your job and avoiding being laid off. This article discusses how engineers and managers can protect their jobs during layoffs and how to proactively prepare yourself…
What is MRR in Digital Marketing – Monthly Recurring Revenue
MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue) means how much money your business earns every month, this term is especially popular in digital marketing and businesses that use subscription model. Note that it mentions revenue, not the profits after deduction of all the costs. Why everybody is talking about Monthly Recurring Revenue I have two clients who have…
Pay Transparency – Benefits and Dangers
Pay transparency (or salary transparency) is a policy that makes information about salaries and benefits available to any employee or even to general public. It is a quite controversial approach, so in this article I sumarise existing practices and share personal experience regarding pay benefits and dangers it brings. Pay transparency in context of this…
Founder Meaning and Qualities
The meaning of being a founder is to be the one who starts the organization (country, startup, movement, etc.). They come up with the initial goal, they look for funding and people who are going to implement their vision. Founders can change goals over time, hire CEO / CTO / CFO or do all the…
What is Founder Mode
Founder mode is when you approach problems as if you are the startup founder. It means that you show an extreme level of care, ownership, and motivation to solve problems in a most efficient and effective way. Another important aspect of founder mode is that you always keep the business side of things in mind.…
Boy Scout Rule – Continuous Improvement and Engineering
One of the most important qualities that I look for into in people is if they care about our common interests. Care is about continuous improvement that resists degradation, or, how tech folks and boy scouts call it, boy scout rule. It can be a contractor that goes the extra mile when renovating my house.…
Outputs and Outcomes Mindset
Output and outcome terms are sometimes used interchangeably, but it is essential to understand their difference. The difference matters in planning, management, or software engineering activities. One of the recent tendencies on the market is that teams are focusing more on outcomes, so there are many questions on what it actually means, to have an…
Tough Times in Tech – How to Deal and Survive
This article is not a historical analysis. This article discusses how to deal and survive during tough times in tech industry, how to motivate yourself and your team. Both managers and individual contributors can find it useful. Folks from the tech industry remember epidemic times a bit differently than others. There was shock, unrest, and…
Efficiency and Effectiveness Difference
There is a difference between efficiency and effectiveness. This is a very common question that pops up from time to time during planning, executing, retrospective analysis, and everyday life. In short, efficiency is about doing things right to achieve the goal (emphasis on execution), and the effectiveness is about doing the right things to achieve…
How to Be a Good Manager
Managing is extremely difficult. Looking back, being an individual contributor has certain benefits. As a contributor, you are responsible only for your own actions, you are almost not involved in politics, and the work scope is focused and specific. Sometimes I do miss those days, but the complexity of management makes it enough fun and…
How to Track Employees
Micromanagement is less effective than aligning company and employee interests via proper goal setting. The fact that you, as a manager, are not able to set goals and understand your coworkers does not mean that they have to suffer. Nobody stops you from tracking your workers, but be ready that they will slack and leave…
Make Personal Efficiency a Habit
As we discussed before, there are certain steps to improve personal efficiency and it is a truly life-changing experience. Yes, it takes time and willpower. Moreover, you might have to spend some time getting used to a new to-do app. However, this is one of those investments that will be paying you back your entire…
How to Stay Focused to Achieve Goals
It is essential to stay organized, keep the cognitive load low, and stay focused. Otherwise, the work-life balance is almost impossible and it is very hard to achieve all goals you have. Let’s see how to reach this state of mind! Clear your thoughts or Get Things Done You probably heard about the concept called…
I Want to Want Something or What is My Life Goal
Wanting something is a pure motivation to live from within, this is why not wanting anything is a bad signal. Understanding what you truly want gives energy, focus, and meaning of minutes on Earth (as limited as they can be). Finding the goal of life takes time and effort, but when you find it, you…
Understand What Matters and Start Achieving Goals
You need to know where you are going and what matters to you. Come up with a plan how to achieve goals that matter to you. Break goals down, track plan execution by using specialised tooling, and be in control of your life. Set and achieve the goal Always ask questions “why”, do not believe…
Value and Track Every Minute of Your Life
Constantly question yourself if you are doing something valuable for you right now, right here. At first it is going to take extra effort to track things you spend time on. However, in the long run it will give great insights into what your life is spent on and will boost your personal efficiency. One…
Personal Efficiency and How to Become Better at It
To apply things we are going to discuss further, it does not matter what you do in your life. My dear reader can be a hard-worker in an investment fund, or be an entrepreneur bending under a heavy weight of responsibilities. Maybe you are a lifestyle blogger or a mother of three beautiful kids. It…
Cold Morning Showers – My Chilling Journey in Cold Conditioning
Invest 2-4 weeks into adjusting to the coldest shower you could possibly have on a daily basis and get more healthy, energetic, and focused! Cold conditioning is free and takes only willpower and dedication. The origins of cold conditioning The concept of conditioning human body with cold to make it stronger is as old as…
Blog expectations
I want to share my expectations for this blog and tell what actually drives me in sharing and helping. This will give more information to you, my dear readers and clients, what you can expect from this blog in return. Intelligence types I want to confess – I am not smart at all. There are…