A perfect day of cycling in Niagara wine country
I organized a one-day cycling trip with some friends this past weekend so I thought I’d publish my notes, for anyone looking for a fun, physical activity for a perfect Ontario summer day.
deniseyu.io
software engineer and cat enthusiast
Latest posts
How I order dim sum
My approach to ordering dim sum when I bring a big group can best be described as.. benevolent dictatorship. It’s not like I don’t let people choose – I do pass around the visual menu when it’s available – but oftentimes, I hear from friends that there’s just too much choice, too much information to process. They’re hungrier than they are interested in learning the ins and outs of composing a dim…
An awkward person’s guide to 1:1s
Since transitioning into management, I have been thinking more about how to maximize the time that I have each day, and especially the time that I spend in 1:1 conversations. One of my reports recently asked me about how she can get more out of 1:1s, and I realized that not too long ago, I was a very awkward person who didn’t really know how to use up 1:1 time, or how to get insight or learning…
How to have healthier debates
A fun fact that you may or may not know about me, is that for about 13 years of my life, I was involved in some sort of competitive debate or speech extracurricular activity. When I was in the sixth grade, I joined my middle school’s afterschool debate club, where we each took turns delivering short speeches, taking any position, on a topic that the teacher pre-selected each week. In high school,…
What I learned from running doodling workshops online
Back in mid-March, as announcements rolled out across North America asking people to stay home, I returned to my parents’ home in New Jersey to start my new job. (Why did I need to be physically in the States to start a remote role, you may wonder… and that is a long, boring story about immigration and work status, that I won’t tell right now.) When I arrived back at my childhood home, with only…
Habits of High-Functioning Teams
I often struggle to explain what it means to be part of a high-functioning software team. Sure, there are mountains of literature, and an entire genre of LinkedIn thought leadership that professes all kinds of guidelines and heuristics about what makes teams work, but in my experience, it’s hard to internalize these ideas and follow someone else’s model if you’ve never seen what good looks like.
What I’ve learned while ramping up on a large software project
In mid-March, I started my new role as a Senior Software Engineer at GitHub. Yes, I started a job in the middle of a pandemic. The company brings on new joiners every two weeks for a structured onboarding process, and my cohort was the first to not be flown to San Francisco for it. I was disappointed to not have an in-person experience, but especially looking back now, it was very much the…
How to Talk About Software at Scale
I’ve recently noticed that, of all the interview preparation materials out there, there’s not much guidance on how to excel in open-ended, “no code” technical interviews. Usually, when interviewing candidates for senior-level roles, a common theme is software architecture at scale. There are not many companies that actually run software at the scale of, say, Netflix, Amazon, Shopify, GitHub, and…
The “Leafing” Method of Structuring Unit Tests
I’ve been practicing Test-Driven Development for the last five years, and in conversation this past week, realized that I’ve internalized a bunch of habits that are really helpful for me, yet they’re generally not written down anywhere on the internet.
Remote Collaboration Advice from Former Pivots
Pivotal is famous (or notorious?) for its pairing culture. It was one of the reasons I joined back in 2016, and the interpersonal skills I picked up through continuous collaboration will always stick with me. As companies all over the world prepare for new health risks created by COVID-19, I asked some former colleagues in the Pivotal Alumni Slack for their best tips around how to effectively and…