Eric Spiegel

“I’m taking a much deserved mental health day tomorrow.” This matter-of-fact announcement came from Joni, one of my slightly buzzed developer teammates, as we enjoyed a Thursday happy hour around a crowded table, drinking beer and eating munchies. Having just graduated and barely settled into my first job, it was no surprise I’d never heard […]

“Have I got a deal for you!” Based on my past experience, these words were not usually a positive indicator of cheery news from Sam, my peer manager from the product development team. I knew what was coming: Ashish, one of the developers on my client services team, had been bugging me about moving over […]

“If I were in management, I’d never hire another software developer.” Pretty strong statement, I thought. Having just landed a fine software job in a lousy economy, I was pretty stoked about my new job and was attempting to share my good fortune with my friend Sam over a few drinks. Sam had similar software […]

“You are SUCH a brown-noser!” Ouch. That was probably the least flattering thing I had been called. Maybe even worse than being called an idiot. I’m sure any developer would have done the same thing. Actually, maybe not. But they should! I’ll let you be the judge. Here’s what happened. I had just returned from […]

“Where is Steve?” We had a classroom full of partners excited to learn about our new software product. What we were missing was the instructor – Steve. Unfortunately, this was not a big surprise. He had a suspect track record having been late a few times in the past. But he was REALLY late this […]

“You have no idea what you are talking about!” Those words really ticked me off. I remember like it was yesterday, sitting there in a team meeting with the entire development team. The team was quite diverse, and I don’t mean by ethnicity. I’m referring to diversity in age. There were shiny new developers and […]

ALSO SEE: Why Developers Get Fired “Why me?” My stomach turned as I stared at Marissa, the third developer our company let go that very unpleasant day. Our firm was laying off 13 developers out of a total of 30 – almost half the team. The first two had taken the news in stride, but […]

ALSO SEE: The Top 10 IT Certifications “That is a load of crap!” “Tell me how you really feel,” was my half-joking response to Jack, a developer on my team who was raising his point during a team meeting. What brought on this passionate (if not eloquent) response was the new requirement that HR had […]

“Not a problem.” Déjà vu. It was the same response to a different request. Looking back on it, I can’t believe I didn’t see the pattern. John was an above average developer on my team. He was the type of guy who everyone liked to be around. He was totally easy going and had great […]

A deer in the headlights. That’s what most developers would feel like during an interview with Google. I have determined this from the recently published questions that Google typically asks in an interview. Anyone who interviews at Google can easily find these Google interview questions and answers. (Just Google it!) So I’m sure a seasoned […]