The Engineering Virtues Podcast: Recent Episodes
Engineering Virtues
Work life balance is a myth - they're a continuum, not a dichotomy. You can't leave a virtuous life at home when you go to the office! Join your hosts Ryan and Justin, two experienced software engineers, as they explore the impact of the classical virtues on the intersection of life and career (especially for software engineers or those working in the technology industry).
How do you know if an organization is antifragile?
- ask good questions of your interviewer?
- traits that determine antifragility
- how your team makes decisions
- “tell me about the last time your team really failed”
- how has the org responded to stressors in the past
- identifying successful pivots
- Look for companies that have benefited from chaos or failure
“I’m just an IC… what does it matter if I work for an antifragile organization?!”
- it does if YOU’RE fragile - because you’re in a place that is probably not going to respond well to the inevitable black swan
- “grow or die”
- bouncing back and forth between “the next big thing” and “rest and vest”
- “rest and vest” is probably fine to be in a fragile organization - so long as you’re growing as an individual
- an antifragile organization does NOT make you antifragile
- “ruthlessness as an engine of improvement”
- An antifragile person is safe in an antifragile OR fragile organization.
How does one operate in a fragile environment? How do you stop avoid getting fragile while you’re in “rest and vest” mode
- Ship something every day. Put first things first - ship it before you watch the clock suck your life away.
- What is the OUTCOME of the work you’re currently doing? What are you doing right now, and why are you doing it?
“Your career should look like a rocketship, not a hang-glider.” - Ryan
Your job doesn’t need to be chaotic to be antifragile.
This week we talk about career antifragility - what is antifragility, how does it relate to resiliency, and how does it apply to your career?
Ryan shares his previous fears around career fragility, and discovery of Nasim Taleb’s concept of Antifragility.
“Fear is the mindkiller” - Dune, via Ryan.
Fragility, Resilience, and Antifragility. Antifragility is not the same as robust!
What is the relationship between antifragility and Stoicism
Netflix’s chaos monkey: https://netflix.github.io/chaosmonkey/
How Netflix learns from outages.
How does antifragility mitigates against fear?
Antifragility is not just reframing.
YNAB - You Need a Budget. It's great, even if you have a budget.
You need to show up and kick butt every day - for yourself and your own career.
If you’re not taking care of yourself first - then you’re not going to be able to succeed in your job.
You have to decide - what is the maximum amount of time you’re going to invest in your job? Because it CAN take all of your time.
Discipline and consistency beat intensity every time.
Own your time! Invest it, and live up to your own expectations.
The importance of seeking a mentor.
“When things get crazy - show up and finish the job…. Be the person that others rely on to finish the job.” - Ryan
Things being bad at your job can be good for you!
Our podcasting interview had a momentary blip in this one, so apologies for Ryan’s audio quality (and the fairly sudden ending). Note also that this was recorded WELL before the recent coronavirus outbreak - so please forgive the humor about the seasonal flu.
This episode’s topics:
- Reactivity and setting goals
- Memento mori and fatherhood. “The thing that you love… every day could be the last day of that. And you don’t know.”
- What an ideal morning routine looks like for Justin - and what happens when the ideal isn’t reality.
- How to see, and respond to, life’s inflection points.
- Whether Ryan and Justin should even be podcasting.
- The importance of living according to your core values.
- How to get started with goals and values when you’re already in a tough period in life.
An archer can notch their arrow and draw their bow to the best of their ability, but once the arrow has flown, they can only wait to see if it hits the target. The intention is under control, as is the initial act of setting the arrow in motion, but the result is ultimately down to Fate.The target on which we fix our gaze, the outcome of any action, is always in the future. But our INTENTION to achieve exists in the present moment.
Donald Robertson, Stoicism and the Art of Happiness
James Clear, Atomic Habits
Wiki for Seneca
Rich Roll podcast
True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so, wants nothing.
In our first episode we talked about the stoic archer “An archer can notch their arrow and draw their bow to the best of their ability, but once the arrow has flown, they can only wait to see if it hits the target.“
What should “the target” be?