A veteran software developer shares the second half of his career journey, spanning roles at Cavedog/Humongous Entertainment, Microsoft (Xbox 360), Valve, and Google. He specialized in debugging, performance optimization, and fixing critical bugs rather than building features. Notable achievements include discovering CPU design bugs, creating profiling tools, optimizing game performance, and investigating quadratic algorithms. The narrative covers compensation negotiation strategies, the importance of interviewing regularly, and lessons about work-life balance before retiring in 2024.
Table of contents
Cavedog/Humongous Entertainment – 1997 to 2002Microsoft – 2002 to 2011Valve – 2011 to 2014Blogging – 2009 to presentGoogle – 2014 to 2024Retirement – 2024 to ???RuminationsSkills learnedSort: