Issue #273

3 December 2021


Issue #273
Pointer.io


Friday 3rd December's issue is presented by Teleport
#Leadership #Management
 
tl;dr: A common challenge for a leader it to express themselves effectively when dealing with the poor performance of an employee or team. The key is to convey the feeling, and evoke the right response, so the phrase "I'm disappointed" can be powerful. "It evokes an emotional response in employees, capturing their attention, and mobilizing them to take action, but it does not convey anger or generate distress."
The Next Big Challenge For Data Is Organizational
- Bryan Offutt
#Data #Management

tl;dr: "Software development teams have a few key characteristics that make them efficient, even at scale:" (1) Specialization of specific roles. (2) Modularization, as problems are broken into chunks. (3) Clarity of ownership. (4) Organizational buy-in that tech debt needs management. Bryan argues that the structure around data teams are in different place for each of the above characteristic, and we are at a "tipping point" for this to change.

So You Want to Become a Sales Engineer?
- Allen Vailliencourt
#CareerAdvice

tl;dr: What is the mystery behind the Sales Engineer career path, what makes it exciting, and how do you get here? This post dives into a typical day in the life of a Sales Engineer and gives tips on how you can jumpstart your career in Pre-Sales.

Promoted by Teleport.

Do-nothing Scripting: The Key To Gradual Automation
- Dan Slimmon
#Security 

tl;dr: There are often procedures that need automating. They are focus-intensive yet require little thought. These are a "slog" and can be turned into a "do-nothing script" that "encodes the instructions of a slog, encapsulating each step (that needs to happen) in a function." Dan provides an example and believes the value is immense - (1) it's easier to power through the slog. (2) It's requires less activation energy. (3) It makes future automation easier. 


A Note From Teleport

Teleport empowers engineers to quickly and securely access any computing resource anywhere on the planet. The Access Plane allows engineers and security professionals to unify secure access and provide visibility to infrastructure, applications, and data across all environments.

 
What If You Dread 1:1s With A Direct Report?
- Lara Hogan
#Leadership #Management

tl;dr: Look at the patterns that come up in these 1:1s to identify what is proving dreadful i.e. how do you speak to each other? What topics do you cover? What’s the timing of your meetings? Which patterns bother you? Then you can reset your 1:1s by “designing your alliance” articulating what each person expects from the relationship, agreeing on how you’ll work together, and being clear about your boundaries. Lara explains in detail.
 
Planning For Change With RFCs
- Vaidehi Joshi
#RFC
 
tl;dr: "How an enduring framework for knowledge-sharing and decision-making helped one team make more informed, egalitarian decisions - and how you can too."
#Networks
 
tl;dr: "This article is my layman's attempt to sort the basic things out with the minimum words and maximum drawings. The primary focus will be on the Data link layer (OSI L2) of wired networks where the Ethernet is the king nowadays. But I'll slightly touch upon its neighboring layers too."
Advent of Code 2021
- Eric Wastl
#Entertaining
 
tl;dr: "an advent calendar of small programming puzzles for a variety of skill sets and skill levels that can be solved in any programming language you like."
 
Notable GitHub Repos
Return Youtube Dislikes
Chrome ext to return youtube dislikes.

 
Supabase
Open source Firebase alternative. 

 
QOI
The “Quite OK Image” format for fast, lossless image compression.

 
Lazy Git
A simple terminal UI for git commands, written in Go with the gocui library.
 
Pointer.io
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