https://jonnyspicer.com/categories/career-and-technology/ Recent content in Career and Technology on Jonny Spicer Hugo en-GB Tue, 20 Jan 2026 00:31:04 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/10-things-i-dont-know-but-want-to/ Tue, 20 Jan 2026 00:31:04 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/10-things-i-dont-know-but-want-to/ Artificial intelligence, extraterrestrial intelligence and emotional intelligence Please help me! I have recently spent a lot of time thinking about the ten questions below, and have yet to arrive at satisfactory answers for any of them. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/zsa-voyager-review/ Fri, 19 Jul 2024 15:10:37 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/zsa-voyager-review/ For the last 6 months I’ve been using a ZSA Voyager, a built-to-order split mechanical keyboard that cost me £300, including shipping costs from Taiwan. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/what-ive-got-wrong-and-right-in-my-career/ Thu, 18 Jul 2024 12:53:37 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/what-ive-got-wrong-and-right-in-my-career/ I’ve made some huge mistakes in my career so far - things that have cost me learning opportunities, promotions, and sometimes my mental health. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/becoming-a-better-programmer-adventures-in-c/ Wed, 27 Dec 2023 19:34:36 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/becoming-a-better-programmer-adventures-in-c/ Why learn C in 2023? I’m not as good at programming as I’d like to be. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/enacting-equilibrium-with-your-extremely-efficient-employer/ Sun, 19 Mar 2023 14:11:10 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/enacting-equilibrium-with-your-extremely-efficient-employer/ Sorry, what? I want to be happier at work, but more importantly, you want to be happier at work. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/what-i-learned-from-applying-to-100-programming-jobs/ Wed, 24 Aug 2022 13:43:27 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/what-i-learned-from-applying-to-100-programming-jobs/ TL;DR Many people do not treat the job market like a market. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/good-enough-at-go/ Fri, 11 Feb 2022 11:50:26 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/good-enough-at-go/ One of my biggest takeaways from the 80000 Hours rabbit hole so far has come from reading their advice on career capital. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/80000-hours-ii-personal-priorities-and-pressing-issues/ Mon, 07 Feb 2022 19:22:09 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/80000-hours-ii-personal-priorities-and-pressing-issues/ The first two sections in the 80000 Hours career plan are to consider what a fulfilling, high-impact career looks like for me, and to spend some time considering which global problems I think are most pressing. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/80000-hours-career-planning-i-the-beginning/ Sun, 06 Feb 2022 17:38:08 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/80000-hours-career-planning-i-the-beginning/ Despite having referenced 80000 Hours on this blog in several previous posts, I must admit, I’ve never particularly gone down its rabbit hole - I’ve largely just skim read their some of their key points and then used it to feel good about myself, as well as to be self-righteous about in written form. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/performance-review/ Tue, 25 Jan 2022 13:42:13 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/performance-review/ Today was my end of year performance review, an experience I have been somewhat dreading. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/mentoring-iii/ Fri, 14 Jan 2022 08:04:56 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/mentoring-iii/ With mentoring being one of my goals for the year I have already started to invest some time into thinking about how to be a better mentor. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/feedback-ii/ Tue, 04 Jan 2022 16:05:40 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/feedback-ii/ January means end of year performance reviews at work, which means both giving and receiving more feedback. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/algorithms/ Wed, 22 Dec 2021 18:45:16 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/algorithms/ After having done so much Advent of Code, I realised that while I am very bad at algorithms, I should at least give myself credit for knowing more than nothing about them, despite my lack of formal computer science education. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/advent-of-code-vi/ Wed, 15 Dec 2021 19:02:35 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/advent-of-code-vi/ Another three days, another three challenges. I must admit, I am definitely starting to reach my limit with these; day 13 felt very manageable but on day 14 I completely failed to learn from mistakes on previous days, and my solution to day 15 is just heinous… it takes circa 90 minutes on my fairly beefy machine to generate the correct answer. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/advent-of-code-v/ Mon, 13 Dec 2021 15:51:45 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/advent-of-code-v/ These next three problems started out not too badly for me, but then got progressively harder. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/advent-of-code-iv/ Thu, 09 Dec 2021 17:48:53 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/advent-of-code-iv/ After three more days of AoC, I am starting to feel the difficulty a bit. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/advent-of-code-iii/ Mon, 06 Dec 2021 08:01:44 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/advent-of-code-iii/ The problems are slowly beginning to get harder, although I did find these three still very achievable. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/advent-of-code-ii/ Fri, 03 Dec 2021 16:14:16 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/advent-of-code-ii/ I solved the problems for days 1-3 of advent of code relatively straightforwardly, although my initial solution for today’s part two was pretty heinous so has been refactored for below (you can see the original spaghetti here). https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/advent-of-code/ Tue, 30 Nov 2021 15:32:21 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/advent-of-code/ Tomorrow is the first day I get to eat a chocolate out of my fancy advent calendar, but more excitingly, it’s also the first day of this year’s edition of the advent of code. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/extreme-pair-programming-ii/ Fri, 26 Nov 2021 19:03:07 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/extreme-pair-programming-ii/ We ran our first “Extreme Pair Programming” session yesterday and I overall I think it was a success. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/extreme-pair-programming/ Wed, 24 Nov 2021 19:08:55 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/extreme-pair-programming/ Tomorrow I am running an afternoon-long session for our engineering team in order to try and improve our collective skills. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/critical-feedback/ Fri, 05 Nov 2021 15:58:42 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/critical-feedback/ Today I got some critical feedback from my boss. Even though I would arrogantly consider myself mature, emotionally intelligent, yada yada yada, it’s funny that my knee jerk reaction is still to take it personally, when obviously it isn’t. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/emotional-investment-ii/ Fri, 29 Oct 2021 18:59:30 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/emotional-investment-ii/ The good news is that I am not writing today’s blog while absolutely smashed, unlike yesterday’s. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/emotional-investment/ Thu, 28 Oct 2021 22:22:21 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/emotional-investment/ Full disclosure; I have had quite a few drinks before writing this one, and I have only 30 or so minutes before my time runs out and I would be losing the bet. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/mentoring-ii/ Sat, 02 Oct 2021 06:00:00 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/mentoring-ii/ After 6 months of mentoring someone, I’ve learned a whole lot. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/perfectionism/ Sun, 26 Sep 2021 07:46:33 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/perfectionism/ My boss gave me some great advice the other day. He said that I always want everything I build to be perfect, and that it’d hugely benefit my career if I focused on delivering the next most valuable thing, rather than continuing to work on something that was already working well but might not be textbook code. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/re-an-honest-living-ii/ Fri, 17 Sep 2021 13:38:56 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/re-an-honest-living-ii/ I reread Steve Salaita’s blog on an honest living again this week. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/aws-certified/ Mon, 23 Aug 2021 11:25:04 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/aws-certified/ First thing this morning I took my AWS Certified Cloud Practicioner exam and, fortunately, I passed. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/revision/ Sat, 21 Aug 2021 09:56:25 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/revision/ I’m taking an exam first thing on Monday morning - an actual, sit-down, online proctored, somewhat serious exam. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/polyglotism/ Wed, 18 Aug 2021 12:39:43 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/polyglotism/ For quite a while now, I’ve wanted to focus only on a single programming language, in the hopes of finally mastering one. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/database-terror/ Wed, 14 Jul 2021 10:55:32 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/database-terror/ I know that databases are incredibly boring to most people, and most of the time they’re perfectly uninteresting to me as well. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/the-right-team/ Tue, 06 Jul 2021 15:12:40 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/the-right-team/ In my new job I have come to appreciate that the idea of culture fit/personality over skills in terms of putting a team together is the absolute truth. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/pork-and-beans/ Mon, 05 Jul 2021 15:08:28 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/pork-and-beans/ I recently rewatched Weezer’s video for their single Pork and Beans, now nearly 12 years old - a dinosaur in internet terms. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/a-necessary-holiday/ Tue, 15 Jun 2021 19:57:54 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/a-necessary-holiday/ This week I took Monday through Wednesday off work, not because I had anything in particular to do, but because I hadn’t taken any holiday since starting my new job on January 18th. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/feedback/ Fri, 04 Jun 2021 17:44:12 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/feedback/ At work, we’re fast approaching mid-year performance reviews which means that our team is in the process of giving and receiving formalised feedback to one another through a HR tool. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/survivorship-bias/ Wed, 05 May 2021 20:01:28 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/survivorship-bias/ I have been on a huge James Hoffman binge recently. Part of it is because I would like to start trying to make nicer coffee, but I also find his videos incredibly relaxing. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/mentoring/ Thu, 25 Mar 2021 18:31:42 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/mentoring/ Today was my first day trying to be a mentor, and it has already proved to be an incredibly interesting experience. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/things-that-are-more-therapeutic-than-therapy-xiii-healthy-work-life-boundaries/ Wed, 24 Mar 2021 18:07:42 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/things-that-are-more-therapeutic-than-therapy-xiii-healthy-work-life-boundaries/ Having started a new, fully remote job in January, one of the things I’ve loved about it so far is my current work-life balance. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/old-site-new-home-ii-new-stuff/ Sat, 20 Mar 2021 14:17:14 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/old-site-new-home-ii-new-stuff/ After a week of checking that none of the basics seemed to be on fire after my migration to Hugo and AWS Amplify, today I had the chance to begin playing around with some of the CI/CD actions I mentioned in my previous post. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/breaking-prod/ Wed, 17 Mar 2021 16:39:31 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/breaking-prod/ Breaking prod can seem like every developer’s worst nightmare, the one scenario that must be avoided at all costs. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/old-site-new-home/ Sat, 13 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/old-site-new-home/ The site looks largely the same, but under the hood there have been some very big changes. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/old-code/ Fri, 12 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/old-code/ It’s remarkable how quickly code ages, and ages poorly at that. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/big-company-opportunities/ Wed, 03 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/big-company-opportunities/ One of the things I am loving about working at a large company is that there’s so many cool events in the calendar I can just show up to. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/being-a-mid-level-dev-ii/ Wed, 10 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/being-a-mid-level-dev-ii/ It’s not been dangerously close to a month of not being a “junior” anymore. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/frustration/ Tue, 09 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/frustration/ It has been a frustrating day at work, and obviously by at work I mean in the 4 metre square “office” adjacent to my bedroom where my desk touches three of the four walls. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/finishing-what-i-start/ Fri, 29 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/finishing-what-i-start/ I am not particularly good at finishing what I start, whether that be courses, side projects, or “weight loss journeys” (I am however, exceptionally good at finishing off pints of ice cream once started). https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/being-a-mid-level-dev/ Tue, 26 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/being-a-mid-level-dev/ As of last week I am now supposedly a mid-level dev, rather than a junior one. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/five-thoughts-after-five-days-at-a-new-job/ Fri, 22 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/five-thoughts-after-five-days-at-a-new-job/ It’s been a whole working week since I started my new job on Monday, and naturally I have plenty of thoughts about it, most of which are good. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/new-job-nerves/ Sat, 16 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/new-job-nerves/ It’s just two more sleeps until I finally start my new job, working as a backend engineer for Zoopla. https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/noughts-and-crosses/ Wed, 13 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://jonnyspicer.com/blog/noughts-and-crosses/ As part of my efforts to learn Go, this week I wrote my first (exceptionally basic) program from scratch in the language.