Whether you’re a new engineer or one with experience, you must first prove yourself in a new organization. — Experienced hires often think, “Hey, I have years of accomplishments at comparable tech companies, I should fit right into this environment because it’s just another tech company.” While your new employer may have many similarities to your previous organization, they don’t have intimate knowledge of your previous accomplishments over time…

From juggling competing job offers to figuring out a company’s salary range, negotiating your compensation in the offer stage is an art, not a science. Here’s how you can make sure you’re paid what you deserve and more 💰 Written by me and published with People of Color in Tech…

An excerpt on what evidence-based research has to say about conflict and negotiation and how we can apply these ideas to modern technology organizations. — When managing people and organizations, it will be difficult to avoid conflict and situations that involve negotiation. Also according to evidence-based research, avoiding them can have detrimental effects on you and your organization. As a result, it is pivotal that people that want to manage their organizations and themselves well…

Can competition have positive qualities or is it toxic? This is what the evidence has to say about that. — The merit of competition amongst teams has always been a contentious point from benign games like football to highly impactful industries like technology. One side of the argument suggests that competition can be exciting and even make all parties involved perform better than they would have without the competition. Another…

Many organizations think money is the only incentive that employees value. But evidence-based research suggests that employment security is powerful in increasing commitment and performance. — Modern technology companies are known for high salaries, yummy snacks, and beautiful offices. Despite this, according to DevSkiller, these companies still have high turnover. This may be due to the perceived lack of an incentive that evidence-based research (EBR) suggests is powerful in increasing commitment and performance, and employment security.

Expectancy theory, supported by evidence-based research, speaks to why employees may not be motivated in organizations. — Employee motivation is often a critical part of innovation and performance in organizations. Victor Vroom, a psychologist, came up with the expectancy theory which suggests that an employee’s motivation comes from three main sources. Cost and Benefits First is the employees’ analysis of the costs and benefits of their efforts. If the employee…

Evidence-based research has shown us several biases exist within modern hiring and firing. Here are a few of them. — Many biases about people exist in organizations that have a heavy impact on the hiring and firing process. Three very impactful ones are implicit personality theory, confirmation bias, and similarity bias. Implicit personality bias has to do with how our brains link observed behavior to unobserved behavior and assume both…

I recently accepted a role as a senior software engineer at Bloomberg, and I’ve been getting all sorts of questions. So, here’s what I did and the lessons I’ve learned along the way. — Anyone who’s gone through the process of getting that first job as a software engineer knows how difficult that process can be. Lucky enough for you, there are more exciting challenges you will face in your career journey. Becoming a senior engineer can be a very arduous process. This is…

If you can be a good football player, you can be a great software engineer. — Flashback to 2014, I was a top competitor for my football team at Brooklyn Technical High School. I played both sides of the ball at center on the offensive line, and defensive end on the defensive line. In the middle of our game against Canarsie High School, my thumb got…