Andy Lester

Articles & Publications

Hewlett-Packard's enterprise.nxt blog

• Becoming a senior developer: 9 experiences you'll encounter, 7/11/2018

New Relic's blog

New Relic is a cloud-based monitoring company.

• 9 Things You Should Never Code Yourself, 3/12/2019
  Updated version of my article from 2014.
• 10 Things You Should Have Learned With Your Software Engineering Degree or at Coding Boot Camp but Probably Didn't, 1/2/2019
  Updated version of my article from 2014.
• The Beginner's Guide to Contributing to Open Source Projects, 10/10/2018
  Updated version of my article from 2014.
• 8 Red Flags To Watch for in Your Code, 4/19/2017
• Your PHP Database Code May Be Vulnerable to Hackers — Here's How to Fix It, 5/16/2016
• Going Beyond grep for Searching Source Code, 1/28/2015
• 7 Things That Make a Great Open Source Contribution, 11/5/2014
• The 8 Essential Traits of a Great Open Source Contributor, 10/21/2014
• Seven Things You Should Never Code Yourself, 7/8/2014
  New Relic's third most popular article for 2014.
• 10 Secrets You Should Have Learned with Your Software Engineering Degree, 6/3/2014
  "Far and away our most popular post of the year" for New Relic in 2014.
• The Beginner's Guide to Contributing to Open Source Projects, 5/5/2014

Smartbear's blog

SmartBear is the leader in software quality tools for teams.

• "How to Disagree Without Being Disagreeable", 4/22/2014
• "12 Things Developers Wish the CIO Remembered", 12/3/2013
• "The Developer's RegEx Survival Guide: 15 Rules for Making Sense of Regular Expressions", 11/6/2013
• "How to Turn Your Pile of Code into an Open Source Project", 9/10/2013
• "Bad Tech Job Interview Questions and How To Answer Them", 4/8/2013
• "13 Things People Hate About Your Open Source Docs", 1/10/2013
• "What To Ask Candidates In Job Interviews (Without Being Insulting And Wasting Your Time)", 4/8/2013
• "Website Performance Measurement Tools: From Brute Force to (Relative) Elegance", 11/13/2012
• "Leveraging Open Source Experience in Your Job Hunt", 9/20/2012
• "Designers and developers: Why can't we get along?", 8/8/2012, with Lauren Grey
• 14 Ways to Contribute to Open Source without Being a Programming Genius or a Rock Star, 3/10/2012

PragPub magazine

PragPub is a magazine published by Pragmatic Bookshelf. Some issues are available online, but others are not. Articles marked "*" are co-written with Johanna Rothman when we had a regular Lester and Rothman column.

• "Résumé Dos and Don'ts", 11/2016
• "How to Write a Project Estimate", 10/2016
• "When Your Job Makes You Unhappy", 5/2016*
• "You Just Lost Your Job", 4/2016*
• "When Co-Workers are Fired or Laid Off", 3/2016*
• "Help Your Career by Contributing to Open Source", 2/2016*
• "Are You Stuck in a Rut?", 1/2016*
• "Meetings", 12/2015*
• "Job Search Mistakes", 11/2015*
• "Common Interviewing Mistakes", 10/2015*
• "Finding the Right People", 9/2015*
• "Selling the Job", 8/2015*
• "Learn Your Strengths", 7/2015*
• "Networking as Problem Solving", 6/2015
• "Six Real-World Lessons", 5/2015*
• "How to Deal With Recruiters Without Going Crazy", 4/2015*
• "What Your Social Media Profiles Should Look Like, and Why They Should be Different", 3/2015*
• "The Google Résumé", 2/2015*
• "What Not to Say in an Interview", 1/2015*
• "The New Guy", 12/2014
• "Time Management & Productivity Tips", 11/2014*
• "Knowing Your Value and Defining it to Your Boss", 9/2014*
• "Job Fit", 8/2014*
• "Exiting With Grace", 7/2014*
• "What You're Getting Hired For", 6/2014
• "The Mechanics of Job Hunting", 5/2014*
• "Developing Your Writing Skills", 4/2014*
• "How to Transition to a New Role", 3/2014*
• "How to Manage Your Boss", 2/2014*
• "Landing the Dream Job", 1/2014*
• "How do I Get My Boss To...", 12/2013*
• "Unhappy at Work?", 11/2013*
• "The Nuts and Bolts of Career Development", 10/2013*
• "Preparing For an Interview", 9/2013*
• "Articulating Value", 8/2013*
• "Responsible Networking", 7/2013*
• "Managing Your Career Over Time", 6/2013*
• "Do You Need a Portfolio?", 5/2013*
• "Being the Geek Who Fits", 3/2013
• "The Geek Disaster Preparedness Kit", 7/2010
• "How to Get Fired Correctly", 6/2010
• "Getting the Job in Spite of a Disadvantage", 5/2010
• "Thoughts from Milwaukee JobCamp", 4/2010
• "How to Give a Tech Presentation, part two", 3/2010
• "How to Give a Tech Presentation, part one", 2/2010
• "New Year's Resolutions", 1/2010
• "Keeping the Job You Don't Like", 12/2009
• "The Layoffs Are Coming!", 7/2009

Other publications

• "What to Include in Your Open Source Resume", 10/9/2009
• "Using mdfind and mdls in Mac OS X", O'Reilly MacDevCenter, 2004
• The Perl Journal: Articles published in 2003-2004 include "Web Security with Taint Checking", "Using Devel::Cover", "Introduction to Automated Testing with Test::Harness", "Five Ways To Find Files" and "Data Manipulation & Perl Command-Line Options"