Toggles – A Pattern Matching Game

Over the past week, I spent a little time each day building something I think some people will think is pretty cool. It’s a game in which you set toggles (on/off switches and numerical dials) to a value. At the end of the day, a calculator runs and determines everyone’s score (1 point for getting the right value). The calculator can only utilize information that would never change for that day (hint: it’s mostly date based). The “winner” of the game is the person who can get a perfect score for 30 days straight. https://toggles.codewalkers.com

Accepting Criticism of Your Ideas

As someone who has worked in technology for a long time, I’ve encountered my fair share of difficult technical problems. While I may not be the best at any one aspect of technology, I’ve found that I excel at problem-solving and leading the technical triage of production issues. However, in my experience, one of the biggest roadblocks to effective problem-solving is the inability to accept criticism of ideas. When troubleshooting with others, I often find myself quickly dismissing ideas that aren’t going to help us solve the problem. While I appreciate the value of brainstorming, I’ve learned to trust my...

How do I identify?

A few months ago, I interviewed for a director-level position at a Fortune 500 company. Everything went great, and I had four total interviews, which included the hiring manager (twice), a panel of immediate peers (same manager), and a panel of other colleagues. In the second interview with the hiring manager, he told me that I was a perfect fit for the role, and they were looking forward to bringing me onboard. However, due to internal HR requirements, they needed more diverse candidates to go through the interview process. The position had been open for over a month already, and...