EP 149 · 54 min · 21 July 2016
Nick Gauthier - Evidence-Based Features
Nick Gauthier talks with Dave Rael about determining why you're doing something, focusing on users and customers, and getting joy from what you build
Nick Gauthier is a web developer who started in Rails, dabbled in JavaScript, loves databases, and recently started working in Go. His experience is mostly in consulting, freelancing, and training, but he's worked at a couple of startups and started a few companies of his own, too. Outside of software Nick enjoys the company of cats, coffee, and competitive video games.
Chapters:
- - Nick's focus in studying computer science and the joy of games
- - Nick's definition of value
- - The things that "light Nick up"
- - How Nick got started in software
- - Building computers
- - Nick's story of failure - finding himself in a position that was not a good fit - blaming self
- - Lessons and advice on determining if a position is a good fit
- - Nick's success story - using customer-focused acceptance tests to guide and inform a migration to a better architecture
- - How Nick stays current with what he needs to know
- - Advice on how to approach selling new approaches
- - Nick's book recommendation
- - The things that have Nick most excited
- - Nick's sources of pain and suffering
- - Nick's top 3 tips for delivering more value
- - Keeping up with Nick
Resources:
- Nick's Blog
- The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition (2nd Edition) - Frederick P. Brooks Jr.
- The Design of Design: Essays from a Computer Scientist - Frederick P. Brooks Jr.
- The Three Great Virtues of a Programmer
- F*** You, I Quit — Hiring Is Broken
- iring is Broken… And It Isn’t Worth Fixing
- Derek Sivers - No more yes. It's either HELL YEAH! or no.
- Matt Wynne on Developer on Fire
- Aslak Hellesøy on Developer on Fire
Nick's book recommendation:
Nick's top 3 tips for delivering more value:
- Make sure you have evidence that what you're delivering actually matters to your customer
- Get the timing and messaging and communication right
- Make sure you're managing yourself