Cate
@catehstn
fractional CTO. coach. quantum particle. in search of adventure; it’s probably fine ✨ Author of The Engineering Leader, published by O'Reilly
Engineers often know what needs to be done. They just called it "refactoring" or "implementing this service." Rebrand the work. What impact does it have on users? On the business? That's how you fix a roadmap 👩🏻💻
On a boat this week 🚢 Haven't touched my computer in days. I love mobile because the smaller form factor forces you to be deliberate. Desktop gave us "make it do everything, settings everywhere." There's something beautiful about simplicity. Mobile set a higher bar 📱👩🏻💻✨🏝️
WAIT - what's this?? our course audio in ACTUAL Apple Podcasts?!! 👩🏻💻 Now DRI participants can listen in a real podcast app!! We are at least 50% more legit, right?!? Also: I am an infra engineer now, bitches 🦝
About to go on vacation. Making peace with what I won't get to. Thankfully Claude's inbox management now offsets the AI-generated marketing noise. I've come a long way since I was obsessed with Inbox bankruptcy 🙈📧💥
I reject the concept of impostor syndrome. It's used to pathologise women and other underrepresented people for a rational response to an unwelcoming industry. Is it a skill gap, or is it people making you feel like you don't belong? One you can work on. The other is about them, not you 👩🏻💻
A package arrived this week. I thought about this book every day while I wrote it. And then when done I filed it as achievement complete and moved on to the next thing (a mistake: if you write a book you are actually supposed to tell people about it). A reminder to stop and feel proud of it 👩🏻💻✨
The more variety you have in your own life, the more empathy you can have for your users 👩🏻💻 Live and work only in English? You won't understand internationalisation 🌎🌍🌏 Only hang out with tech people? You won't understand users who do everything on their phone because they don't have a computer 📱
Some engineering skills transfer to running an organization: systems thinking, seeing risks. But good engineers often think they can be good at anything. Not true. You also need to understand not everyone thinks like you. You have to meet people where they're at 👩🏻💻✨
My blogging advice hasn't changed: Make a month of content. Publish it. Don't overthink it. Write for you, not for other people. No one has taken this advice yet. Maybe my impact is saving people from registering domains they'd never use 😆👩🏻💻
Is it just me or does more software seem broken lately? It's bad when users stop expecting things to work. Release trains + feature flagging exist for a reason 👩🏻💻📱
Having so much fun developing again! Reminds me of why I fell for mobile dev: People had started to hate their computers but still loved their phones. That felt like an opportunity to build applications people actually want, not ones corporations subject them to 👩🏻💻📱
Sometimes I feel bad about what my dedication to gift wrapping does to my friends. Today: turning a spar bag into gift wrap on a train. But they are both very pleased with themselves 😂💝
It's my birthday next week 🎂 Here's what I'd tell 18-year-old me: Skip chemistry, go straight to CS. Turns out I'm more 👩🏻💻 than 👩🏻🔬 - plus the market for chemists has been declining for over a decade. So even if things seem hard today, it could have been worse! Oh, and economic history ≠ economics 📚🤦🏻♀️
"A collection of marketing frameworks that happen to deliver food." That's how someone described mobile delivery apps. And it's how we build most things now. What do you even do with all this data? OK it's not about helping users - it's just about growth metrics. But does it even work? 👩🏻💻🔒
Time-based software vs. task-based software. Instagram, TikTok, YouTube succeed when you spend more time. That's why they're designed to be addictive. Task-based software succeeds when you accomplish your goal — 5 minutes or 50, doesn't matter. I know which one I want to work on 👩🏻💻🌐
Most exciting news: we have a new raccoon (thank you @groove.museum 🦝) Second most exciting: @jyhsu@mstdn.social and I have a new course: Navigating the AI Shift. buff.ly/hTcMmKx It's a wild time in tech, so we designed a course to help navigate it. Starts in May - we'd love you to join us.
I worry about junior developers in the AI era. Getting something working is easier than ever. But being a senior engineer is about keeping it working. AI makes the first third of programming incredibly fast. That was never the part we spent most time on 👩🏻💻🔧
April Fool's story: I once suggested inbox bankruptcy as the joke feature. My tech lead said "let's patent it." So we did. March 31st: panicked lawyer call. "Is this going out tomorrow as an April Fool's??" It did not. And sadly still not implemented. 👩🏻💻📬💥
Broke the build last week. Reminded me of another time I broke something - and why I'm fanatical about permissions now 👩🏻💻
Remember when the internet was for making friends? I've been more online lately, looking for that magic again 💫🌐
Token woman speaking invitations used to make me sad. Now they're negotiation practice. I ask for what I want. No is fine. If yes, I practiced asking and getting. Still shitty. But instead of internalizing, it’s a reminder to self-advocate. A course would be way more expensive 😆 👩🏻💻🎤✨
I hate the term "servant leadership". You can't be the servant of people you have power over. The framing is intellectually dishonest. If you call yourself a servant leader, you're either avoiding your actual responsibilities — or just trying to feel better about having power 👩🏻💻💪💥
Now's a good time to play around and explore. Last time I did this? After leaving Google. Spent a year on side projects, built this photo editing app (making it performant was genuinely fun). Then a friend needed a manager in Colombia. Obviously I said yes. You never know where it leads 📷👩🏻💻🇨🇴🌎
