Books, Podcasts and other Advice to Get You Through the Holiday Code Freeze 🥶
Recommendations from a x-functional group
Ahhh, the last Friday before before Christmas and Hanukkah. Needless to say no one should be shipping today. In fact many companies are probably in a change freeze as developers, product managers, and other team members log off for a well earned holiday break.
So what’s a ProdDev team member to do when they can’t ship code? I reached out to a collection of current and former colleagues to help answer this question. I wanted to gather some recommendations to help the Shipping on Fridays community through this challenging time 😂
Since you can't ship during the holidays, what will you be reading / watching / listening to?
Regina Barmo, Software Engineer at PagerDuty - “I'll be reading A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR) and playing The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom on the Nintendo Switch. I've seen so much buzz about both. I take my sweet time to get on a bandwagon but once I'm on, I'm hooked! I finished the first Zelda game, Breath of the Wild, earlier this year and it was amazing. My friend just recently loaned me the first ACOTAR book in the series. I'm looking forward to making some progress in both the ACOTAR series and the TotK video game!”
Chirag Medhora, engineering leader & friend - “I just finished reading The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes. I recommend it to anyone who has ever been stopped in their mental tracks by this regretful realization: "damn, I really was not self-aware enough in ___ situation".
Zohaib Ahmed, CEO at Resemble AI - “I’ll be listening to the new Fall of Civilizations podcast on the Mongols. If you can put yourself there in any moment of history and think through the decisions that were made, it can open up a whole new level of experiences and lessons.”
Warren Langevin, Product Manager at Microsoft Surface - “I’m reading History of Early Kirkland. It’s been a delight to read this drug store find about the history of my community as a company town that went bust at the turn of the century. I’m really enjoying this book that’s filled in the gaps of why and how the Kirkland community came to be.”
Do you have any side projects you’ll be working on?
Scott Bastek, data scientist & friend - “I'm actually building a Portuguese tutoring app powered by Gen AI! I'm trying to build something I can actually use to improve my Portuguese.”
Zohaib - “I want to play with multimodal LLMs. Google Gemini's new models allow for complete rethinks of what's possible in product. I think companies that actually adopt these models internally can make functions/employees 10x more productive.”
How do you reset ahead of the New Year?
Regina - I enjoy making a New Year's Resolution bingo board! As you accomplish each resolution, you cross out the corresponding space to hopefully get BINGO. It allows you grace in case you don't accomplish *all* of your resolutions and it is more motivating to do when it's less high-stakes and more of a fun game.
Scott - Drink more wine :)
Zohaib - Build something new. There's a certain thrill from putting aside work and thinking about a new concept from scratch.
Warren - I like to turn off my work mail and complete a home renovation or gardening project with hand tools. It’s a complete change of focus from work meetings, decks, and mail and engages your problem solving and execution skills in a concrete (ha!), real world task with immediate results. You get to master a new craft and admire your work for years to come!
Is there anything you are interested in learning in the New Year?
Regina - I want to learn more about AWS infrastructure and tools to help me do my job better. There's a free learning plan for developers and the courses seem relevant so I'll start there!
Scott - Agentic AI
Warren - We have a global and remote team and want to get more connected and engage all our people in a world of lower operating budgets, so I am seeking new ideas and tactics to build team culture and trust with minimal travel budget.
As for me?
I’m unwinding by reading Shogun by James Clavell. I love the clash of cultures and how the main characters approach each other. At times they have patience and are curious and at other times their cultural differences boil over into frustration. It’s very human. The palace intrigue, drama and action keeps the book exciting. And if you’re reading this post you know my side project - so stay tuned for more Shipping on Fridays next year! (And if you have ideas for new posts please let me know!)
Wishing everyone a great holiday season and new year!