Austin Keener

Hot take - VIPER is the worst architecture for an iOS application. I’ve yet to join a team where the pattern isn’t a massive roadblock to team comprehension. It often feels like one person has pushed the pattern without strong team buy-in. Way too many protocols for the sake of protocols. I love good code discipline, I love clean architecture, but VIPER is over engineering the problem. Team comprehension and quality of coding-life suffer. (Just for the record I’d say this about an over-RX-ified app too even if I’m down with FRP. Team comprehension > fancy footwork)

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On this random Wednesday, if you’re a software developer thinking, for no specific reason, about pivoting into the impact space and want to talk about what FreeWorld is doing and why we’re growing so fast and how you can help, please reach out.

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There is a lot of advice out there to use URLProtocols for mocking HTTP requests in your tests, but I think there is a much better way, so I wrote about it: https://lnkd.in/gduS-UhA #swift #swifttesting

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Some unconnected thoughts on this “ghost developers” panic: Despite tech being a major economic driver for a couple of decades, MBA programs, and therefore the state of management thinking, are rooted in manufacturing. The mindless drive for efficiency in all kinds of businesses makes the most sense if you’re talking about factories and logistics. Not so much for knowledge work. Software is the only huge field where “R&D”, “production” and “services” are collapsed into one big undifferentiated mass. The output of product development is code shipped to production, and it needs to be continually maintained and updated. The closest thing software has to a manufacturing model is offshoring engineering to eg India or Eastern Europe, while keeping design and product/eng leadership in the US, but that creates ongoing problems because you can’t just hand off specs to India for manufacturing and move onto the next launch. Offshore teams need ongoing support because the customers need ongoing product support. Because engineers produce the actual shipping product, while they’re closer in spirit to fellow managers/leaders or an R&D team, the manufacturing mindset can only really make sense of engineering as the factory floor, and MBAs’ whole thing is looking for ways to extract extra pennies by optimizing manufacturing and distribution. They can’t actually do that with software, but they aren’t technical enough to know that, and it doesn’t stop them trying. So, “ghost developers” — which, of course, is just engineers writing good docs, being in meetings, talking to customers, supporting each other with code reviews or pairing — seems like gross inefficiency because it looks like a factory producing fewer LOCs than companies are paying for. Remember how, when Elon took over Twitter, we’d hear about him asking coders to _print out_ their latest contributions to the codebase, and if the pile was too short they got fired? Elon is a manufacturing guy, not a software guy. Even the “Stanford researchers” part is MBA culture gone wild — they have _no idea_ what’s involved in making software, and can’t even talk to their teams effectively, but they think their dumb mindset is “science” and now they have “research” telling them they could fire half their teams and be more productive. 🫠

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Layoffs suck. For me in particular, it's feels even worse when I hear generic positivity encouragements like "things will be okay" or "something better will come along" or the worst of them "you'll get back up stronger". But watching season 2 of Mr. Robot a particular scene really resonated with me. It applies to those who are currently facing uncertainties with their employment at this time, but cannot really swallow the illusory positivity pills everyone is sharing. Nothing wrong with being positive. I think it's helpful to others who orient their worldview that way. But for me in particular. I need a different kind of pill: that is truly identifying the suck with no filter. Here is what Mr Ray (A character in Mr Robot says about life in general). "My wife, when she drove that car that day, she did everything right. She always wore her seatbelts, hands attended to them, she was the most perfect driver I've every met. It was annoying. She stayed in the lines, never went above or below the speed limit, stopped at traffic signs. She followed every rule. And then one day none of that mattered." "Control is about as real as a one legged unicorn taking a leak at the end of a double rainbow." "You know that bullshit people say about how when you fall, you gotta get up. I reject that shit man." "You know why?" "The whole thing is a fall. You can't help but be in a perpetual state of grasping in the dark. It's not about getting up. It's about stumbling - stumbling in the right direction. It's the only true way to move forward."

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If you are a developer laid off during the #Techpocalypse and are grinding through a job search right now, remember to take time to nurture the creative part of you that drew you to software development in the first place. Find a personal project and spend some time on that every day. Here's mine: I'm building my own browser extension to pull data from my application spreadsheet and highlight the LinkedIn listings for jobs I've already applied to (often discovered through other platforms). It's not spectacularly complex or anything, but it's useful to me and it's keeping me sane. (Frontend colleagues and former employees: please excuse the backend-engineer-uses-css asthetic)

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Yesterday, I had to work _directly_ on my MacBookPro for a bit. Usually I work on an external monitor. It's kind of shocking how little screen real estate there is on the laptop itself. It definitely gives me pause when considering UI design. As a dev, it's hard to imagine working directly on the computer. But, I know that's how a lot of non-developer people work. I wish the Chrome Dev Tools device simulator had sizes for laptop devices so I could keep laptops front-of-mind. Seems strange that they only have mobile devices. What are people using these days to at least consider laptop design?

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So I can officially say I'm a "Staff Engineer" - again! I first made Staff Eng almost 8 years ago during my time at Etsy. And after leaving that role I've been stuck either at Senior (because the next step up was Principal and I wasn't there yet) or without a title (for...a lot of reasons). Of course, when I was given a formal title again, I was bumped down to Senior. Titles are weird, let's just state that outright. They're uneven (sometimes out of necessity and with some good reasons). And arguments that you can be effective if you're called L5 or L55 do have some merit. At the end of the day, though, pay structures, career progression, and lots of day to day things like the meetings you're invited to depend on a title, for better or worse. There's probably a blog post to write about when I switched companies and took a hit on the title at some point in my future. For now, though, it's great to be recognized for my work.

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A lot of people turn down offers due to compensation. That’s a fact. I didn’t make that up, it’s not a personal opinion, it’s an important part in making a decision. People want more transparency around compensation, so here is what I’ve been seeing on my end. I’ve been recruiting software engineers with 4+ years of industry experience. On average I am hearing people say they are targeting $180-220k total compensation. I have had a few outliers outside of that. I have people who request $120k and $150k. I’m not sure if those numbers are publicly listed somewhere, but on the lower end those are the two I get. 9 times out of 10, candidates will say they are looking for “the market rate”, “willing to negotiate”, “want to wait til the offer to discuss numbers”, and they will try to counter the total comp expectation question back to me. When we talk some more - they open up that they are willing to take less, that’s their IDEAL* compensation, and I always jot down the comp goal / never ask what they’re currently making. I believe current salary is irrelevant because you are taking a risk when joining a new organization, leaving your tenure, and should look for increase in your next role. I do have candidates who are my OUTLIERS - they request $300k+ with the max so far being $440k. In these situations, I used to let candidates know we probably wouldn’t be able to come close to that or compete. Lately though, I’ve been questioning that logic. I think Microsoft CAN compete, but you have to look at your package holistically. In the last year I have challenged myself personally to see… can I make more investing than my base pay? Can I beat out these Engineering salary expectations without being in the field/ making less? And if I can do it … can I share how* I’m approaching this because yes …. Base pay I don’t make 300k. No where close to that. But despite the ups and downs of the market, I’m determined to clear $300k this year. I believe I’m worth every penny and what those engineers who demand crazy numbers have taught me is …. you’re worth whatever number you want. You just need to get a little creative 🤑 Microsoft sets me up perfectly to do a few things: Receive: 50% 401k match 10% discount through ESPP HSA contribution The numbers below do not account for RSUs granted, bonus pay, Perks+ stipend, or healthcare benefits. My fidelity acct only includes 12 months of investing while at Microsoft, this doesn’t include any money outside of having my current 9-5 job. (This isn’t total savings, doesn’t include any side income, just an experiment.. is this possible?) Since I’m heavy on Microsoft stock/ refuse to sell, I am investing in 4 different categories: 1. Our competitors that pay dividends 2. Safe companies that pay dividends 3. ETFS 4. Outside of tech stocks - I like semi conductors, healthcare, defense and growth stocks

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“You won’t always win, but if you keep showing up, you can’t lose.” Last week, I went all in on prepping for a federal interview. It was a challenge, no doubt. But pressure makes diamonds. In just two days, I locked in: 🔹 OSCAL (Open Security Controls Assessment Language) — learned how it makes compliance automation smoother 🔹 A refresher into NIST 800-53 and NIST RMF — because federal work don’t play 🔹 A hands-on lab using AWS Config and Python to automate compliance docs like SSPs and POAMs I built a process that took AWS findings → converted them to JSON → ran them through a Python script to create compliance artifacts in minutes. What used to take hours? Automated. Now, here’s the twist: I didn’t get the job. But I am not upset. I walked away with new skills, a sharper mindset, and proof that I thrive when the heat is on. What I learned is simple: 💡 The game doesn’t change. The players do. You can either stay stuck doing things the old way, or you can level up and adapt. The lesson? You’re not going to win every time. But if you keep showing up, keep learning, and keep building? You’ll look back and realize you’re way ahead of where you started. "The marathon continues" -NH Let’s make 2025 the year we all level up. #Cybersecurity #NIST #OSCAL #AWS #Automation #MarathonMindset #KeepBuilding #Continuousmonitoring #ATO #abilitytoobtain #fedramp

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The trash icon on Macs was (and still is) a huge UX mistake. It actively encourages users to do the incorrect thing. Here me out: The point of the trash can (or recycle bin in Windows) is to have a safety net to deletion. If a user accidentally deletes a file, they have some time after to undelete. This works for both the “misclick oops” immediate case and the “I forgot I needed that file for xyz” days later case. By showing the “full trash” icon, MacOS encourages the user to immediately empty the trash after a delete. Thus, removing the safety net and adding a mindless extra step to file deletion. When designing a UX, the golden rule is to encourage positive actions and discourage negative actions. The “cool factor” of having the icon change depending on its contents outweighed the UX considerations, if there were any. Decades later, the mistake was never fixed and has been copied by everyone. #uxmistakes #uxdesign

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“There’s no jobs for Jr Software Engineers out there!” NOT TRUE…But there are some major issues in today’s hiring market. 1. MISALIGNED FOUNDATIONAL EXPERIENCE: The majority of aspiring SEs are either: Recent CS grads (less hands-on exp); OR, Bootcamp grads (less theory). Meanwhile...Most enterprise companies who hire a ton of SEs are looking for CS grads that ALSO have hands-on experience already. 2. MISALIGNED TECH STACKS: The majority of aspiring SEs are only experienced in NodeJS and/or Python. Meanwhile…Most of the companies who hire a ton of SEs are using Java or C# backends. Companies using NodeJS or Python backends are often smaller and can't hire as many SEs. That’s why our Enterprise Accelerator is making a difference. We identify diverse CS grads who are hungry, and we teach them the hands-on Java skills that companies are using in the real world over 3 months. Best of both worlds 😎 If you're interested in seeing some of this kind of talent--send me a DM and we'll get you connected. Want to join our next Enterprise Accelerator cohort? Stay tuned for the next webinar in early August.

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If you're not a software engineer, keep scrolling. I've been an engineer my entire career and have led engineers for 9+ years. I love this profession. But there's one mistake I see mid-level engineers make too often: Not being clear about the value they're providing. There are 4 areas in which engineers provide value: Technology, Product, Process, and People. But no one gets to Product, Process, or People without mastering Technology. And I'm here to tell you there is a lot of value in the technical understanding. Don't try to scale the ranks before you build depth there. We’re engineers. No matter your title, you need to be comfortable building software. Ideally, you should love it. When you’re progressing through your career, it’s exciting to get tapped on the shoulder to lead a product, overhaul a DevOps process, or manage people. And when you get these opportunities, take them. But make sure you stay close to the engineering part of the process. Because as soon as your coding capabilities start to dwindle, you lose value. That sword needs to stay sharp. A principal engineer who is either a) not interested in being hands-on or b) no longer capable of being hands-on, can’t succeed in leading a team. Today I’m a CTO. But if my team needs me to write code, I’m there in a heartbeat. So my advice to younger engineers is: Stay close to the tech. It makes you better at Product, Process, and People. If you’re an engineer reading this, know that I appreciate you. This isn’t an easy job, and I respect you for doing it. P.S. In the spirit of this post, here's a photo of me with much longer hair from *slightly* earlier in my career.

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From Code to Connection: Navigating the Leap to Leadership in a Changing World I’ve been a web developer for nearly 30 years—back when "webmaster" was a real job title, and the internet was a curious, uncharted frontier. It’s a strange thing, looking back at a career that started in the age of dial-up and has spanned the rise of modern frameworks, the cloud, and a global, hyper-connected economy. And yet, here I am, still thriving, still building, still learning. I was fortunate. I carved out a niche in finance and medical services early on, and as a remote worker long before it became the norm. That kept me away from management roles, which historically demanded on-site presence. And I’ll admit—I’ve cherished that freedom. Living in a mountain town, surrounded by beauty and solitude, has been a gift. But the world changed with Covid. Remote management became not only possible but widely accepted. And with that shift, a question emerged: What comes next? You see, everyone I’ve ever worked with asks me the same question: “Why aren’t you a manager?” They tell me I have the soft skills to coach and encourage, that I naturally build people up and foster growth. And the truth is, they’re right. I care deeply about the people I work with. I’ve always been a student of human connection, fascinated by how we can elevate each other. It’s where I thrive—helping others succeed. But maybe you’re like me. Maybe you’re one of the old dogs who grew up with the internet in the '90s. Where do we go from here? How do we make the leap from being highly skilled developers to being people managers? How do we reconcile the satisfaction of writing beautiful, efficient code with the call to lead, to mentor, and to serve in new ways? I don’t have all the answers yet. The world is shifting, and I’m not as certain of my next steps as I once was. But I know this: I’m pleased as punch to keep writing quality code at high velocity, to keep delivering solutions that matter. And yet, if the opportunity were to present itself—if I were asked to take that leap into management—I think I’d welcome it with open arms. So here’s to the next chapter, whatever it may hold. To those who are on similar journeys, I’m curious: How are you navigating this? How do you chart a course from doing to leading? Let’s figure it out together.

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It's time for my public confession. I'm that person who treats browser bookmarks like Pokemon - gotta catch 'em all! 😂 2025: The Year I Finally Face My Bookmarks Dear Chrome, Twitter (X), and every other app holding my 10,000+ “saved for later” bookmarks: your days of being ignored are over. This year, I'm going Marie Kondo on these bookmarks. If it doesn't spark joy in the next 15 minutes of reading, it's getting thanked and deleted. 🧘‍♀️ This year, I’m not just another bookmark hoarder. I’m becoming a bookmark squasher. No more saving things like “10 Ways to Be More Productive” and never reading them (irony noted). No more tutorials bookmarked for “someday.” Someday is today. 2025 is the year I actually read, learn, and delete—instead of adding another folder called “Misc 2.” If you need me, I’ll be buried under articles about habits, coding tutorials, and recipes I forgot I wanted to try. Wish me luck. On that note happy, joyous and a healthy new year 2025!

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Software and AI/ML engineering friends - this is a killer opportunity to work for one of my favorite platforms (and one that I use literally every single day). Let me live vicariously through you (especially given my complete lack of engineering skill). #job #hiring #discord #engineering #software #data #AI #artificialintelligence #ML #machinelearning

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Any SWE Managers here? Check out the Levels.fyi End of Year Report one-pager for SWE Managers! SWE Managers make up a lot of the higher offers we see submitted to Levels.fyi, mainly because of their (usually) very high equity grants that come as compensation for the scope and impact of their roles. This time around, I’ve collected a few of our highest paying companies by median TC as well as some of the highest verified offer submissions we’ve seen and their TC breakdown. For instance, take a look at the highest verified offer for a SWE manager role, with a whopping $900k equity grant after taking into account Meta’s stock growth for the year. Along with a $285k base and $90k bonus for the year, this SWE Manager has a total annual TC of ~$1.2M! Check out more SWE Manager salaries here: https://lnkd.in/ggHNmpYC #salarytransparency

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