Scaling a company isn't just about numbers. It's about intuition and innovation.

A founder once told me: “We don’t hire people to write code. We hire them to solve problems.” That stuck. Because code is only the visible layer. Behind it is: ▪️Understanding the problem deeply ▪️Collaborating across teams ▪️Balancing speed with sustainability ▪️Communicating trade-offs The best engineers don’t just push commits, they deliver impact. Recruiters look for it. Founders bet on it. PMs depend on it. So when you ship your next feature, ask yourself: 👉 Did I just write code, or did I deliver impact? #TechLeadership #EngineeringCulture #Storytelling #CareerGrowth

I once interviewed an engineer who couldn’t implement “LRU Cache” problem. Most companies would’ve rejected him on the spot. I almost did too. But instead of writing him off, I tried something different. I gave him a real-world problem from our product. And here’s what happened: => He approached it systematically. => He asked the right clarifying questions. => He explained his reasoning as he worked. => He didn’t pretend to know — he debugged, adapted, and figured it out. Few months later, he wasn’t just delivering — he was leading projects, mentoring juniors, and raising the bar for the whole team. That experience taught me something important: ✅ LeetCode problems measure one kind of skill. ✅ Real-world engineering demands a very different set of skills. Big tech can afford to over-index on algorithm puzzles — they hire at massive scale. But for smaller teams, where every hire has an outsized impact, we need to filter differently. I’ll always choose the engineer who can think, communicate, and solve problems in context over the one who can just remember a textbook algorithm. #Hiring #Leadership #SoftwareEngineering #CareerGrowth #TechLeadership #EngineeringCulture #Developers #ProblemSolving #TeamBuilding

Your tech portfolio is filled with impressive projects, but it might be missing the one thing hiring managers are actually looking for. After reviewing countless portfolios, the single most common mistake we see is focusing entirely on the "what" while completely ignoring the "why." Many portfolios are a gallery of finished products, a to-do list app, a weather dashboard, a personal blog. They showcase technical skill, which is great. But they don't showcase the one thing that gets you hired: your ability to think. Hiring managers don't just want to see that you can follow a tutorial. They want to see how you approach a problem, how you make decisions, and what you learn from challenges. The fix is simple: for every project, tell the story. Instead of just showing the final result, add a brief case study to explain: 🔹 The problem: what was the challenge or user need you were trying to solve? Why did you choose this project? 🔹 The process: what was your approach? What technologies did you select and why? What obstacles did you overcome? 🔹 The solution: how did your project solve the initial problem? 🔹 The reflection: what did you learn? What would you do differently next time? This is the most critical part. A portfolio that shows how you think will always stand out from one that just shows what you can build. What's one thing you believe every tech portfolio must have? #PortfolioTips #TechCareers #CareerAdvice #JobSearch #GetHired #WebDevelopment #UXDesign #DataAnalytics #CareerGrowth

🚀 In tech, most of us look the same on paper… but the ones who stand out are the Purple Cows. 🐄 What’s a Purple Cow? In Seth Godin’s words, a Purple Cow is something remarkable — so different that it forces people to notice. Imagine driving past hundreds of cows… after a while, they all look the same. But if one of them was purple, you’d stop, point it out, and probably tell others too. That’s the power of being different. And I feel this applies to software engineering just as much as marketing. Most of our work looks identical on the surface — bug fixes, commits, code reviews, sprint boards. Nothing flashy. But hidden in that routine, we all get chances to create our own Purple Cows: A script that quietly saves your team hours every week. A refactor that turns chaos into clarity. Writing tests so reliable that everyone builds with confidence. Documenting things so clearly that even months later, nobody struggles. Or mentoring someone in a way that shifts how they think about code forever. These don’t make headlines. But in the middle of daily noise, such actions stand out. They make people pause. They make your work remembered. 💼 And the same applies when you’re planning a switch or looking for a job. Because when dozens of resumes look identical, what makes someone notice yours? Maybe it’s that one side project that solves a real-world problem. Or a contribution to open source that shows initiative. Or simply the way you’ve documented your portfolio with clarity and honesty. Being a Purple Cow as a job seeker doesn’t mean exaggerating. It means highlighting those small but remarkable things that prove you stand out. So maybe for us engineers, being a Purple Cow isn’t about building the next unicorn product. It’s about doing ordinary things in a way that makes people say: “This actually changes things.” That’s how we stand out. Even in the ordinary. 🟣 #SoftwareEngineering #PurpleCow #CareerGrowth #TechLife #WorkWithAI #SmartDevelopment

Why are we still pretending take-homes tell us anything? A six-hour coding task doesn’t measure real-world performance. It measures: • How much free time someone has. • How patient they are with pointless hoops. • How badly they want out of their current job. Here’s what actually predicts success: • Can they ship under constraints? • Can they communicate clearly with teammates? • Can they own outcomes, not just output? Hiring should measure impact, not endurance.

It's never just about what's on paper. Here's what usually makes the difference: 📋 Tech Stack & Level Fit – Yes, the fundamentals matter. But it's about the right fit for this specific role. 🗣️ Structured Storytelling – Can you explain your most relevant experience in 3 minutes? Clear communication shows clear thinking. 🔍 Genuine Curiosity – Candidates who research our mission and ask thoughtful questions immediately stand out. ⚡ Team Chemistry – Sometimes it's about finding the right collaborative energy. Not good vs. bad, but the right match for how this team works together. 🚀 Learning Agility – Showing how you've adapted to new tools or challenges often matters more than a "perfect" background. Bottom line: We're not just hiring skills. We're hiring people we want to build the future of Web3 with.

Something has been bugging me for a while, and it won’t rest until I pen it down. I’ve realized a simple truth in our space: too many people jump on the next train the moment it looks shiny. Add a bit of marketing and a “$99/month” tag, and distraction sets in after the hundredth ad view. That’s why I’ve always tried to detach myself from the tool frenzy. Tool-chasing eats away at your attention span, cuts short your focus, and short-circuits your reasoning. Why? Because you’ve abandoned the core principles of engineering: building reliable, performant, scalable, and maintainable systems. It’s GPT today. Tomorrow it’s Claude. Before the week ends, you’re wearing a Replit badge. This is technical suicide. Slow down. What has saved me over time is curiosity with discipline. I don’t adopt tools based on hype. I interrogate my needs with strict questions: Why do I need this tool right now? What trade-offs am I willing to accept? Have I fully pushed the limits of what I already have? Engineering is a field of trade-offs, not shortcuts. I refuse to migrate until I’ve researched deeply, tweaked configurations, requested improvements, and hit an actual wall where my current stack can’t deliver. And here’s the reward: when I finally do adopt something, I adapt to it quickly. Why? Because I’ve done the research. I know the why behind the what. That one choice sticks, and it takes a long time before I move on again. Your first job as an engineer is not to be a mini-influencer, screaming about how ten different tools gave you a 1% bump. Your job is to figure things out with what you already have. Sometimes, one tool used well can move you miles ahead, if only you sit down and do your damn job. #Engineering #DevOps #SoftwareEngineering #Focus #SystemsThinking

Hiring spree is a great way to… get out of business. Been there. Done that. Quick story 👇 At first, I hired two programmers - my high school friends who were just as passionate about coding as I was. It worked out well, so I thought: 💡 “If I can generate X revenue on my own, then every new person I hire should add another X.” Boy, was I wrong. Within weeks, I brought in 1 designer and 5 programmers. And within 6 months, I had to scale down… all the way back to just me and one other person. Here are the lessons that stuck with me: 1️⃣ You can’t expect employees to work as hard (or as much) as you. It’s your company, your dream, your reward. Their motivation will be different. 2️⃣ Hiring is fun. Firing isn’t. It hurts — but if you treat people with respect and honesty, many will forgive you and even stay connected for the long run. 3️⃣ Money runs out faster than you think. Always. Salaries are often the biggest expense. 4️⃣ Don’t overspend on fancy equipment or shiny offices. Buy only what’s needed — you can always upgrade later. 5️⃣ Hire only when you have a real plan for someone’s skills. Don’t hire out of excitement or pressure. 👉 Growth isn’t about headcount. Did you experience being laid off or did you have to laid of some of your employees? Share your story! #growth #mistakes #overspending #startups

Most engineering leaders believe hiring the "best" developers means finding the fastest coders with perfect pedigrees, but here's why that's actually destroying team velocity. I watched Moneyball again on Tuesday night - probably for the tenth time. You know the Brad Pitt film where Oakland's GM turns baseball upside down by recruiting players nobody else wants. Here's what I love about this flick: they weren't just being contrarian for fun. They identified a hidden metric that actually predicted wins better than the obvious stuff everyone else chased. While scouts obsessed over home runs and speed, Oakland focused on getting on base. Simple. Surgical. Systematic. Here's the thing about hiring developers, and I bet you're in the same spot as me - I can't afford the talent that FAANG companies recruit. But here's why it doesn't matter: I'm not actually looking for the developer who cranks out the most lines of code with a famcy pedigree. That's chasing the wrong metric entirely. Individual coding speed is a vanity metric. What actually drives team velocity is knowledge transfer and collaborative problem-solving. When you hire the generous developer who teaches others, the one who asks questions that help teammates think better, you're not just getting one good developer—you're getting a force multiplier across your entire engineering org. My "getting on base" hiring metrics: How readily do they share what they know? Can they explain complex technical concepts in ways that actually help others learn? Do they write code that the next person can understand and extend? These aren't soft skills—they're the invisible drivers of sustainable team performance. My recommendation to you? While competitors fight over the same obvious talent pool, build teams where knowledge compounds instead of getting hoarded. That's how you out-execute when you can't outspend. And if you want to see your team really fly, ask me about how to put our motivationcode.com tools to work to help you.

When I was starting out, I had a choice: Do I go deep and specialize in one area… or do I take a broader path where I could touch design, backend, frontend, even product conversations? I chose product engineering. Why? Because I didn’t just want to build features. I wanted to build products — things people could touch, use, and feel value from. Along the way, I realized product engineering isn’t only about coding across the stack. It’s about: Asking why before building. Understanding user problems. Owning the outcome, not just the output. Specialists are critical; we need the deep expertise. But product engineers connect the dots, bridging business, design, and technology. To me, that’s the difference: product engineering is less a role, more a mindset. That decision shaped how I work today — and honestly, it’s the reason Results Must Flow. Curious: if you had the choice again, would you go deep as a specialist or broad as a product engineer? #ProductEngineering #BuildWithImpact #BeyondCode #ResultsMustFlow #TechLeadership #EngineerToBuilder #CodeIsNotEnough