kate mats

Recently I have noticed a trend with candidates putting a snapshot of themselves on their resume (and these aren’t actors or some sort of role that involves facing the public–these are people vying for engineering roles).  Some look like slick professional photos–similar to what you might see from one of those promotional speakers at those [...]

Early in my career I lived up to the mantra “work hard, play hard.”  There were many days when I would come into the office after a late night of eating, drinking and being merry.  Of course, when you don’t get enough sleep, and calling in sick is not an option (I don’t know about [...]

I subscribe to a lot of newsletters.  My email box is filled with around 25-35 new emails messages daily that come from various shopping sites to which I subscribe (you get advance notice of sales, coupons, etc), and a few other select sites.  One of those sites is The Ladders.  I used this site when [...]

So this weekend was the 6th weekend in a row that I had worked.  And I am not talking a little email here and there, I am talking about full on sitting down at my computer and working for multiple hours.  Normally I am not one to complain, and I truly love the company I [...]

I have always thought that the reason places like Google catered food was because it was a nice perk for the employees. A year ago I would have never thought that I would be advocating this practice for all start-ups. So how did I change my mind? Let me tell the story.
Not [...]

This weekend I went to the Seattle Gift Show.  My goal was to review some vendors and get ideas for an online drop shipping/retail site.  I must say I was pretty unimpressed.  There wasn’t a whole lot of vendors and the general opinion of people in attendance is that it wasn’t worth attending anymore since [...]

I was having a conversation today with one of my colleagues and we were discussing our shared desire to constantly better oneself.  He put it smartly when he said that some people were “Learners”.  Learners are the people that posses a natural curiosity and desire to acquire knowledge and information.  I think that this desire [...]

I am an introvert. I like to contribute it to the fact I started my career as a geeky software developer, but the truth is I think I have been shy my whole life. I grew up reading books and while the other kids played on the playground I was content to sit [...]

Over the years I found it increasingly easy to get more done at work.  I don’t know if I am alone in this, but I used to get very little done in the office.  Even if I had a lot of work I would allow myself to be distracted or bored.  Most of the time [...]

There are a lot of hiring managers and potential employers who somehow managed to get stuck on “we need a person who is an expert in xxxx technology”.  Sometimes, you may have a business case why you need a specialist or a specialized set of skills, but for the majority of circumstances I would argue [...]