I love reading interesting posts on various topics. There are a lot of great blogs and great writers out there. The last few weeks, I've read some particularly interesting pieces about soft skills and growth and development as a programmer. I wanted to highlight a few of those here.

How we use sticky notes for professional development - This is a great post about creating goals and accountability to keep individuals focused and moving forward. The thing I really love about this audio post is that it is an interactive methodology to workshop through these thoughts.

How individual contributors get stuck - A great piece by Camille Fournier about paying attention to individuals. This is a great list of things to think about if you manage a team or do 1:1s. Additionally though, as a colleague, if you are in a company that has little structure or management, this is a great list of things to recognize in colleagues in order to encourage and motivate one another.

Stop setting goals you don't actually care about - Got this one from KWu posting it on twitter. Goal setting is really hard (and I think a lot of people don't even really do it) but it can be super helpful in moving yourself and your career forward. This is a good piece on making sure you are creating goals that work for you and that you want to work for.

The reality of developer burnout - Yes, we all want to advance professionally but it's also important to take care of ourselves. This is a good, short piece about recognizing when things are going wrong and what to do to change it and help yourself.

Code Review best practices and code review in remote teams - Two posts that really break down good code reviews. I'm a big proponent of constructive feedback in code reviews as well as making sure you're talking about the positives of the code as well. These two reads give tangible steps and things to keep in mind when reviewing code. It's hard to keep these things in mind when you're in the midst of reviewing a pr so the next time you do, after reviewing, open up one or both of these and check out how your comments align with these best practices.