Developer Tea
1,314 episodes - English - Latest episode: 12 days ago - ★★★★★ - 395 ratingsDeveloper Tea exists to help driven developers connect to their ultimate purpose and excel at their work so that they can positively impact the people they influence.
With over 13 million downloads to date, Developer Tea is a short podcast hosted by Jonathan Cutrell (@jcutrell), co-founder of Spec and Director of Engineering at PBS. We hope you'll take the topics from this podcast and continue the conversation, either online or in person with your peers. Twitter: @developertea :: Email: [email protected]
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Episodes
How Little We Really Know
April 11, 2020 04:00 - 15 minutes - 14.6 MBWhat are some things you don't know about? In today's episode of Developer Tea, we're talking about uncertainty, lack of knowledge, lack of clarity, and pushing past the feeling of guilt when we think about the things we don't know in order to stay mindful of our limitations and outline where we can improve. 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on...
Improving Through Bad Ideas and Silly Questions
April 08, 2020 09:00 - 13 minutes - 12.4 MBWhy are bad ideas important and why are silly questions needed? Very likely you've been in a meeting welcoming any question, good or bad. In today's episode, we're talking about being vulnerable in meetings with your peers and how the person leading the meeting can participate in the discussion by being vulnerable themselves. 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and ...
Forcing Functions
April 06, 2020 09:00 - 7 minutes - 6.91 MBIn today's episode, we're talking about the model of forcing functions or the choice that requires us to move in a specific direction. We'll talk about difference constraints that we can apply to our development or rules that we apply to our work in order to stretch our ability to problem solve and get around tough situations. 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and...
Growth, Uncomfortability, and Deliberate Practice
April 03, 2020 09:00 - 9 minutes - 8.74 MBWhat exactly is deliberate practice and how does it apply to intensionally putting yourself in a state of discomfort? That's what we're talking about in today's episode of Developer Tea. In today's episode, we'll talk about positive stress situations and the choices a developer can make to grow in their career. 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused...
Practical Steps for Reframing Problems
April 01, 2020 09:00 - 13 minutes - 11.9 MBIn today's episode we're talking about the words we use to describe a problem we're working on. We'll discuss how our words frame problems faced and how we can broaden our ability to effectively communicate a problem to find a solution more quickly. 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you. 🍵 Subscribe to the Tea Break Challenge...
Take Advantage of What You Already Have
March 30, 2020 09:00 - 10 minutes - 10 MBThe difference between speed and acceleration is vast. When driving at a consistent speed, you often don't notice how quickly you're going, but when you accelerate, you feel it immediately. In today's episode, we're talking about the feeling of falling behind when you stop accelerating or learning as quickly as a developer and start to steadily travel down your career. We'll talk about specific scenarios to help focus your growth using the strengths that you've already established when you ...
Stress and Tolerance
March 27, 2020 09:01 - 10 minutes - 9.27 MBHow do you react to stressful situations? In today's episode we're talking about expectations versus the realities of how we respond to new stress in our daily lives and a concept that could help redirect actions to help you better manage how you respond to and handle stress. 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you. 🍵 Subscrib...
Architecting Change - Interpolation
March 25, 2020 09:00 - 11 minutes - 10.2 MBMost change we experience in our world is unpredictable and uncontrollable. So if change is happening all around us, constantly, how can we maintain homeostasis? In today's episode of Developer Tea, we're talking about different ways to view change and better accept change that you're not particularly excited about. 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us fo...
When Do Long-Term Models and Habits Betray You?
March 23, 2020 09:00 - 11 minutes - 10.4 MBThe idea of having long-term mental models and habits that you've built over time is the route to lasting change. However, sometimes our lasting habits can become so ingrained in our day-to-day that they can limit us in personal and professional growth. In today's episode, we're talking about cases when our habits are standing in our way of growth and what we can do about it. 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a revie...
The Overreaction Paradox
March 20, 2020 09:00 - 11 minutes - 10.4 MBWe can't anticipate everything that is going to happen as developers and sometimes we over-prepare for any events that could happen as a developer. In today's episode, we're talking about when overreaction is appropriate and when it can get in the way of a more nimble and simple response. 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you....
Hidden Environment Inputs - Mindful Remote Work
March 18, 2020 09:00 - 10 minutes - 9.19 MBIn today's episode, we're talking about coping with remote work and how to be mindful during social distancing. We'll cover the different effects remote work can have on your work and home life and focus on the environmental changes when opting into a remote work environment. 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you. 🍵 Subscribe...
Interview w/ Carl Yates Perry (Part 2)
March 16, 2020 09:00 - 45 minutes - 41.4 MBWhat is your mindset? In this second part of our discussion with Carl Yates Perry, we're talking about healthy developer mindsets and how to identify a healthy team mindset and how your team mindset can affect your own growth. Carl Yates Perry On The Web Twitter 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you. 🍵 Subscribe to the Tea...
Interview w/ Carl Yates Perry - Part 1
March 13, 2020 09:00 - 42 minutes - 38.9 MBCarl Yates Perry leads Square's developer business but made a few tough career decisions to get there. In today's part 1 of this 2-part conversation with Carl Yates Perry, we're digging into his career trajectory and how he knew when it was time to make the next career change. Carl Yates Perry On The Web Twitter 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focus...
Flattening the Cost of Change Curve
March 11, 2020 09:00 - 7 minutes - 6.87 MBIn today's episode we're digging into the C2 wiki interview with Bill Venners, which focuses on flattening the cost of change over time so that cost becomes more constant. C2.com Bill Venner's interview 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you. 🍵 Subscribe to the Tea Break Challenge This is a daily challenge designed help you...
4 Reasons You Will Never Pick the "Right Tool For the Job"
March 09, 2020 09:00 - 12 minutes - 11.1 MBTools are not a solution to a problem, but people are. In today's episode, we're talking about how choosing the right tool for the job can limit us to uncovering a better solution to the problems we're trying to solve. How can we choose a tool best suited for the operator doing the job? 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you. ...
Four Questions for the Weekend
March 07, 2020 10:00 - 15 minutes - 14 MBHappy Saturday! In today's episode, we're asking four questions that cause us to pause and reflect in order to answer. 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you. 🍵 Subscribe to the Tea Break Challenge This is a daily challenge designed help you become more self-aware and be a better developer so you can have a positive impact o...
Breaking Your Own Rules Accelerates Bad Habit Formation
March 04, 2020 10:00 - 14 minutes - 13.2 MBWhenever you take action, there will be feedback. Today we're talking about when to break your own rules and solve a problem. There are functional reasons to break rules, but what are the possible long-term repercussions of our decisions and how can we regulate our incentives to break rules better? 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matte...
Redefine Your Career Search Rules
March 02, 2020 10:00 - 10 minutes - 10 MBSearching for a job is hard for both the people looking for a new job and a company looking for the perfect candidate to fill a position. In today's episode, we're talking about a different way to approach your next job search. 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you. 🍵 Subscribe to the Tea Break Challenge This is a daily cha...
Functional Autonomy and Finding Meaning in the Small Things Today
February 28, 2020 10:00 - 9 minutes - 8.31 MBThink about the mundane tasks that you're going through today. In today's episode we're talking about finding joy in even the small things that we do on a daily or weekly basis. How are the small things we do, connected to a larger goal? 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you. 🍵 Subscribe to the Tea Break Challenge This is a ...
Your Influence is Catalyzed By What is Influencing You
February 26, 2020 10:00 - 4 minutes - 4.44 MBStudies show strong-willed friends, greatly influence your choices. In today's episode, we're talking about the experiences and relationships that influence our personal drive and behavior. The things that influence you are the things that teach you, and the people you surround yourself with influence your behaviors and reactions through learned habits. How does the team you'er on influence your career development? 🍵 Subscribe to the Tea Break Challenge This is a daily challenge designed...
Your Time is An Account With An Unknown Balance
February 25, 2020 05:00 - 12 minutes - 11.9 MBToday we're talking about time as a resource of abundance. We'll cover self-care as an investment, work as something that you can enjoy more consistently and free-time as something you can learn and grow from. Today's challenge will be to enjoy your life, no matter where you're at. 🍵 Subscribe to the Tea Break Challenge This is a daily challenge designed help you become more self-aware and be a better developer so you can have a positive impact on the people around you. Check it out and g...
Don't Make the Problem Fit the Model
February 21, 2020 10:00 - 11 minutes - 10.8 MBA model is not the pure picture of the truth. If we think about road maps as we use them today, they are almost always slightly out of date. In what way can a map be useful as they relate to developers? In today's episode, we're talking about how we can easily abuse a model by changing a problem to fit a model that a team relies on and the repercussions of broken models in our code and our career as software developers. 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the...
Implicit Models and Processes
February 19, 2020 10:00 - 8 minutes - 7.63 MBWe often hear the term, "process", and this carries a lot of baggage. It's easy to believe that processes are one concept that we apply to something we do. In today's episode, we're talking about implicit processes that we follow without realizing it. 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you. 🍵 Subscribe to the Tea Break Challen...
Measuring Freedom to Change
February 17, 2020 10:00 - 10 minutes - 9.92 MBThe freedom we want to create as managers is the freedom to disagree and solve problems towards a goal. In today's episode we're talking about freedom and autonomy among a team and offering different ways managers can provide as much freedom and autonomy as possible to their team. 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you. 🍵 Su...
Embracing Confusion
February 14, 2020 10:00 - 6 minutes - 6.15 MBWhat does it mean to be confused? In today's episode, we're talking about confusion and how we manage and learn from points of professional confusion. We'd dig into the perception of confusion in the workplace and offer tips to embrace confusion both in ourselves and with our co-workers. 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you....
Thought Experiment - Rejecting Your Intuitive Solution
February 12, 2020 10:00 - 6 minutes - 5.81 MBTake a problem that you expect to face - one that you haven't solved yet or taken action on but have an ideal of how you would take action. Today's thought experiment is to imagine rejecting your proposed solution and forced to think of an alternative solution. What exactly are you solving? 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to y...
You Don't Have to Be a Slave to Self-Improvement
February 10, 2020 10:00 - 12 minutes - 11.8 MBWhen we allow surrounding cultures to drive our goals, we fall back to the systems and goals that the people around us have created. Where do our goals come from and how does it make our lives dysfunctional? 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you. 🍵 Subscribe to the Tea Break Challenge This is a daily challenge designed help ...
Getting Stacked Value From your Daily Activities
February 07, 2020 10:00 - 12 minutes - 11.7 MBWhat makes something worth doing? How do you decide what activities are worth doing?
Getting Stacked Value From your Daily Activities
February 07, 2020 10:00 - 12 minutes - 11.7 MBThe amount of time in a day is the same but the amount of margin you have in your day can vary. In today's episode, we're talking about some heuristics for choosing the best activities for your time and value output. 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you. 🍵 Subscribe to the Tea Break Challenge This is a daily challenge desig...
Defining Your Reference Points
February 05, 2020 10:00 - 10 minutes - 9.21 MBWhen was the last time you asked a question in a meeting? Questions are an invitation to collaboration, especially in our jobs as developers. In today's episode we're talking about the questions we've been asked that change the way we think. This episode will challenge you to be vulnerable and ask more questions for the sake of your code and professional growth. 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps o...
Engineering Your Habits Like Interfaces
February 03, 2020 10:00 - 8 minutes - 7.88 MBIn today's episode we're talking about the idea of interfaces as some kind of expected way to interact with our code and how to take that frame of mind to our day-to-day lives. Being explicit about what we need to make our days successful can be rare but it might make sense to imagine each day as it's own function and the outputs that you want for each day. What kind of outputs do you want to happen today and what do you need to make that possible? 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the...
Plans Should Be Functions, Not Documents
January 31, 2020 10:00 - 14 minutes - 13.8 MBWe expect things to go one way, but often, they go in another way. In today's episode, we're talking about plans and how to stay agile when the plans we make, don't necessarily go the way we expect. This episode especially applies to timelines that we sign our names to when attempting to accomplish a development goal and how we can developer a better strategy when things don't go the way we're expecting. 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head ove...
What Are your Fundamentals?
January 29, 2020 10:00 - 7 minutes - 6.7 MBOne of the biggest mistakes you can make as a developer is to overcomplicate whatever you're doing. This comes all the way down to every line of code you write. In today's episode, we're talking about simplicity, complexity and value of our work. At what point does complexity devalue our code? 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters t...
Getting On The Right Level When Solving Problems Collaboratively
January 27, 2020 10:00 - 8 minutes - 8.08 MBOften as a developer you'll find yourself either too far in the weeds of solving a problem or too far up in the clouds. In today's episode, we're talking about the levels in which we choose to contribute to solving a problem and tips to identifying roles our teammates can play help us solve a problem we're all facing. How do we solve the relational issues that a team is facing and how can we support each other in solving problems we are faced with? 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the...
Management Anti-Pattern - Detail Abstraction
January 24, 2020 10:00 - 11 minutes - 10.4 MBThe anti-patterns we are talking about today are details. Who manages the details and when is management getting too involved or not getting involved sooner in the details of a project? 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you. 🍵 Subscribe to the Tea Break Challenge This is a daily challenge designed help you become more self-a...
Management Anti-Patterns - False Homogeneity
January 22, 2020 10:00 - 13 minutes - 12.2 MBFocus is perhaps the one superpower that's common in successful people. In today's episode, we're talking about a management anti-pattern that totally destroys focus and provide a solution to get focus back for you and if you manage a team, for them as well. This episode is not just for managers of teams but general personal time management. 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discov...
Management Anti-Patterns - Implicit Assignment of Responsibility
January 20, 2020 10:00 - 9 minutes - 8.74 MBThere are so many ways to be wrong as a manager and this week, we're talking about management anti-patterns. One thing we all do is assign responsibility to ourselves and possibly to others around us. In today's episode, we're talking about our relationship with assigning responsibility. 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you....
Two Biases that Can Affect Your Work and Relationships
January 17, 2020 10:00 - 16 minutes - 15.2 MBWe carry our minds with us through our careers. Our perceptions of the world around us are based on our biases or predispositions. In today's episode we're talking about models of thinking and how we can identify biases that affect our working habits and relationships. 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you. 🍵 Subscribe to the...
You'll Never Have All of the Information
January 16, 2020 10:00 - 12 minutes - 11 MBToday, we're talking about gathering information as part of the developer's job. We'll dive into what it means to use the information we have to translate or create a solution to problems we're solving on a daily basis. What is the function of the information we're trying to gather and how does this information translate to a usable solution? 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers disco...
Productivity Isn't About How Much You Get done
January 13, 2020 10:00 - 7 minutes - 6.46 MBProductivity is an endless hill. How can you increase the output of you or your team as an engineer? In today's episode, we're zooming out to explore how individuals contribute to the productivity of a team as a whole. What is the least amount of work that's necessary to reach your goal? 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you....
3 Guidelines for Happier Work with Designers
January 10, 2020 10:00 - 23 minutes - 21.1 MBClarity is hard to find when things are ambiguous. In today's episode, we're talking about solutions in uncharted territories and coming to conclusions from our own point of view. Specifically, we'll be exploring opportunities to strengthen relationships between designers and developers when our opinions to solutions collide. 🧡 Leave a Review If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and ...
Connecting Tasks to Operating Modes
January 09, 2020 10:00 - 11 minutes - 10.4 MBThe work that you do and actions you take have outcomes. In today's episode, we're talking about finding better outputs through the actions and effort that we put into our day. What tasks deserve more effort and what tasks don't require as much effort to complete and how can we identify the level of effort an event needs quickly? Sponsored by: Pathrise Pathrise is an online mentorship program that gets you a job at a top tech company. You receive unlimited weekly 1-on-1’s until you get hi...
Success and Cumulative Advantage
January 06, 2020 10:00 - 10 minutes - 9.7 MBWhat are the common systems of successful people? In today's episode, we're talking about the common systems of successful people, and how we could incorporate some of those systems in our daily lives to help us improve our own personal and professional success. Sponsored by: Pathrise Pathrise is an online mentorship program that gets you a job at a top tech company. You receive unlimited weekly 1-on-1’s until you get hired, along with workshops, small groups, support over email and text...
A Key Misconception About Resolutions
January 03, 2020 10:00 - 10 minutes - 9.92 MBHappy New Year to everyone listening to this show! In today's episode we're focusing on automating as much of our daily life as we can and one misconception of habit forming and how we can better shape our lives to make habit building easier. Sponsored by: Pathrise Pathrise is an online mentorship program that gets you a job at a top tech company. You receive unlimited weekly 1-on-1’s until you get hired, along with workshops, small groups, support over email and text, and other types of...
Holiday Re-Air: Interview w/ Gabriel Weinberg (part 2)
December 27, 2019 10:00 - 33 minutes - 31.1 MBToday's guest, Gabriel Weinberg, the CEO of DuckDuckGo uses connections to help steer the company. What we're talking about today with Gabriel are mental models for building a team and business. In part 2 of this interview, we dive deeper into Gabriel's mental models specifically for engineers. His book, Super Thinking, which we base the discussion on can be found here: Super Thinking. Get in touch If you have questions about today's episode, want to start a conversation about today's to...
Holiday Re-Air: Interview w/ Gabriel Weinberg
December 23, 2019 10:00 - 35 minutes - 32.9 MBToday's guest, Gabriel Weinberg, the CEO of DuckDuckGo uses connections to help steer the company. What we're talking about today with Gabriel are mental models for building a team and business. In part 1 of this interview, we dive into Gabriel's recent book, Super Thinking. This is a big book of mental models. Don't miss part two of this interview, airing on Friday, December 27th. Get in touch If you have questions about today's episode, want to start a conversation about today's topic o...
Simplifying
December 20, 2019 10:00 - 18 minutes - 17.3 MBIn this episode, we're talking about working with distraction and how we can focus better in the new year.
Simplifying
December 20, 2019 10:00 - 18 minutes - 17.3 MBThis is the last episode of the 2019 year, and like most people spending time with family and preparing for the upcoming year, we're thinking about goals. In today's episode we're talking about resolutions, planning and focus in the new year. 🙏Thanks to our Sponsor: Flywheel Local by Flywheel is the #1 local WordPress development tool designed to make building, testing, and launching WordPress sites a total breeze! It’s time to revolutionize your workflow and download Local by Flywheel fo...
What We Do With a Lack of Information
December 18, 2019 10:00 - 17 minutes - 15.7 MBWhat exactly does it mean to forget? In today's episode we're talking about perspective. Most of what we experience in our day-to-day will eventually be forgotten and there isn't a clear definition of what it means to remember or forget things. We'll dig into the detail of moments that we forget and those details that cause memories to stick. Understanding how we can make more memorable decisions when designing our code structure and what we can do when we have a lack of code decision info...
Disagreeing Better, On Purpose
December 16, 2019 10:00 - 15 minutes - 14.3 MBImagine you're running a team. As a manager, you're setting up the processes and expectations among your team. What are the organizational responsibility, ceremonies and disciplines? In today's episode, we're talking about setting expectations and specifically how we can plan better for when disagreement happens. 🙏Thanks to our Sponsor: Flywheel Local by Flywheel is the #1 local WordPress development tool designed to make building, testing, and launching WordPress sites a total breeze! I...