12 Scholarships in 12 Months: Announcing the AMPLIFY Scholarship Series
The AMPLIFY initiative will give away 12 scholarships in 12 months for various causes. You can apply for scholarships, contribute to them, or suggest upcoming scholarships.
Steph | Smith
Remote work, continuous growth, and technology.
Latest posts
Another Year Under the Sun ☀
Each new year, the world gets a little bit older...and so do we. This end to an era nudges us to take a step back and reflect on “how we’re doing”.I like to call it “a look in the mirror”. This article is mine.
Writing is Thinking: Learning to Write with Confidence
Learning to write is learning to think, because writing is thinking. They are two peas in a powerful pod. This article goes over my writing process, focused on minimizing the activation energy to get started.
Antifragility at Work: Change is the Only Constant
After 3 years at Toptal, I decided to move on. This article pieces together my thought process in deciding to pursue something new, in a world where change is the only constant.
Gaining Perspective Through Untranslatable Words
What do you do with words that don't translate? You gain perspective from them. Learn from examples of how different cultures approach colour, time, and mathematics differently, to better understand how language may be impacting your own wiring.
Must-Have Qualities for Effective Leadership
500 days of thoughts around what characterizes effective leadership, including a focus on humility, prioritizing others, and leading through influence.
An Ode to Excel: 34 Years of Magic
In an age where "software is eating the world", what can we learn from the tool that has withstood the test of time? This piece illustrates how the fundamentals behind Excel can be used to envision the next wave of bulletproof technologies.
Finding Top Talent: Stop Looking Inside a Box for People Thinking Outside of One
When you're looking for innovative and action-driven talent, why not open your doors up to people that have already pioneered their own lives?
How to Be Great? Just Be Good, Repeatably
A thought piece on what it takes to truly be great and what that even means in the first place.
A New Age: Finding Non-Tech Remote Jobs
The world is evolving. Remote work is no longer reserved for technical roles. This article walks through how to think about, search for, and land non-technical remote jobs.
3 Approaches for Using the Google Sheets API in Node.js: A Tutorial
A tutorial outlining 3 approaches for connecting and authenticating Node.js with the Google Sheets API (v3 and v4), along with utilizing the data in an express application.
Finding Programming Inspiration: Learning to Code and Launch in Months
A personal story about the shifts that allowed me to put development in an accessible place, allowing me to learn and launch four projects within a year.
When Do You Become a Developer?
After polling 300+ people, it's clear that many people associate different meanings to the idea of when you "become a developer". Perhaps that's the beauty of an industry that is continuously growing and open in nature.
Step by Step: Setting Up Ghost with a Digital Ocean Droplet
Setting up a blog on Ghost with Digital Ocean is quick, but not always intuitive. This step-by-step tutorial helps you get through the installation process so that you can self-publish in a beautiful interface for $5/month.
Best Practices for Managing Remote Teams: A Psychological Perspective
As we enter the future of work, we need to consider how we can design remote environments to be most successful. This article draws on frameworks from Give and Take, Algorithms to Live By, and the Four Tendencies to produce more thoughtful best practices for remote leaders.