Cate Huston
cate.blog · Personal blog · on HN since 2017
Cate Huston, a software engineering leader, writes about management, hiring, team culture, and when to quit a job.
What HN saysOne commenter calls her blog a goldmine, citing her post on fixing a broken team; another thread debates a hiring demographics quote.
25HN people shared it
4linked it in comments
32stories submitted
461story points
3 months agolast shared
2017people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Signs It's Time to Quit Your Job (2021)2 people · 65 points · first shared 2022 · 9 comments on HN
- 2Accidentally in Code2 people · 16 points · first shared 2018 · 1 comments on HN
- 3How I Offloaded My Anxiety to Trello2 people · 5 points · first shared 2020 · 1 comments on HN
- 4The Return of the Office2 people · 3 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 5Addressing hiring gaps through user research2 people · first shared 2019
- 6Getting More Strategic1 people · 187 points · first shared 2025 · 30 comments on HN
- 7The Cost of Fixing Things1 people · 77 points · first shared 2019 · 13 comments on HN
- 8Low process culture, high process culture1 people · 70 points · first shared 2022 · 30 comments on HN
- 9Interviewing at Google (2010)1 people · 3 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
- 10Running a Manager Feedback Cycle1 people · 3 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
- 11The Rent versus Buy of Career Growth1 people · 3 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 12Honey, I Left the Tech Industry1 people · 3 points · first shared 2023 · 2 comments on HN
- 13Decisions1 people · 3 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 14High Throughput, Low Completion1 people · 2 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 15Energy Management for Newer Managers1 people · 2 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
fabianholzer · 2022-11-07
I think the premise that "every employee in the team is an aspiring or budding creator in their niche" is for the majority of companies incorrect. In my experience it is much more likely to encounter "Dark matter developers" [1] than their opposite.
When the personal brand building is not done on company-time (unless on behalf of the company, for example in a developer advocate role), it is no business of the company. To borrow a sentence from Cate Huston: "My employer buys my time, they rent my personal brand." [2]
[1]https://www.hanselman.com/blog/dark-matter-developers-the-unseen-99
[2]https://cate.blog/2021/09/20/being-the-dri-of-your-career/
notzuck · 2019-10-09
"To that end, as we reviewed our hiring process, we realized that the demographics of people we attract to apply are not inline with the demographics of the people we hope to hire."
If that's there attitude then fuck them. You can guess which demographic they are talking about.
https://cate.blog/2019/05/15/addressing-hiring-gaps-through-user-resea…
human20190310 · 2019-09-19
I googled the quote, and based on the context here [0], it seems like the demographic being referred to is non-male.
What's wrong with reviewing hiring processes to determine if they're excluding a demographic that contains individuals who would have done well in the role?
[0] https://cate.blog/2019/05/15/addressing-hiring-gaps-through-user-resea…
EDIT: The tl;dr for the article is that they're doing research on "how the people you didn’t hire would have done".
rmbryan · 2019-05-13
Her entire blog is a goldmine.
Consider: https://cate.blog/2019/05/08/where-do-you-start-when-a-team-is-broken/