Arjun S Kumar

Frontend @ZeptoNow. ex @reliancejio / ex @amazon / ex @tapzoApp / ex @bottr_me Junior dev for life. Manchester United fan.

[Arjun S Kumar @arjunskumar]

When we place our faith in hard work, we’re wishing for the creation of character;

Because work means everything... https://t.co/d4Km9cSWJz

[Lee Robinson @leerob]

things I believe:

- shipping fast beats the best strategy
- speed is a superpower
- create a bias toward shipping
- small teams ship faster
- ai-native teams will move 10x faster than those not willing to change
- landings > launches (i.e. product adoption > shipping code)
- listen, build, ship, tell the customer, then repeat forever
- you have no career ceiling
- grit > talent
- there’s no substitute for putting in the hours
- get 1% better every day
- be ruthlessly truth seeking
- the truth can be painful
- you can just change your mind if wrong
- have strong opinions, loosely held
- maximize your exposure hours
- “anecdata” > data
- seek the collective truth, not just one opinion
- communication is the job
- clear writing is clear thinking
- everyone (yes, you) needs to become a better writer
- leaders step up to provide clarity when absent
- be the person taking notes, even if it’s just for yourself
- mismatched expectations lead to sadness
- anticipate objections before hitting send, then address them
- education is the best form of developer marketing
- be authentic and own your failures
- never use the word “webinar” ever again
- being helpful compounds
- leadership means owning outcomes beyond the org chart
- influence > titles
- leaders have to do the work themselves *and* delegate
- you can write your own playbook
- study what worked for others, then take your own path
- work can also be your hobby
- this doesn’t mean you can’t have other hobbies
- passion + boundaries > mythical “work-life balance”
- your best work comes from following your curiosity
- demos > memos
- you could have built a prototype in @v0 during the meeting
- only ship things you’re excited about yourself
- hiring is what separates good leaders from great
- there are two hiring answers: hell yes or no
- growth potential > current skill
- hire people you can learn from
- hire people you would someday be happy working for
- favorite interview question: what work are you most proud of?
- always try to assume good intent
- lead with empathy
- they might just be having a bad day
- criticism is good feedback if you listen unemotionally

[Wes Kao 🏛 @wes_kao]

My favorite quote for building a team of high performers:

Picasso said, “There are some painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are other painters who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun.

"Turning a yellow spot into the sun" means being someone who:

• turns a little into a lot
• surprises and delights
• elevates the mundane
• is relentlessly resourceful
• shows flashes of brilliance
• raises the bar for what's possible
• doesn't need step-by-step directions
• comes up with clean, tight, elegant solutions

Most people do the opposite: they have near-infinite resources at their fingertips (much of it simply from living in the age of the internet), but come back with mediocre work.

Be someone who turns a yellow spot into the sun.

PS This is a screenshot of a Notion doc of Maven's company values.

[Arjun S Kumar @arjunskumar]

Legends!

[Fabrizio Romano @FabrizioRomano]

🥲✨ I’m not crying, you’re crying!

Toni Kroos leaves Real Madrid.
Marco Reus leaves Borussia Dortmund.

Legends. 🎩

[Kiah @UtdKiah]

Why Manchester United's FA Cup Victory is HUGE!!

A thread. 🧵

[Arjun S Kumar @arjunskumar]

I'm hiring for FEEs for Reliance Retail to help build next gen marketplace platform. Looking for engineers across levels - juniors to seniors to architects to influence the architecture, culture, practices and everything frontend within the organisation.

Please DM to know more.

[Chirag N R 🎯 @BrandChirag]

Game on @CRED_club - @postpeapp. My thoughts on PostPe launching credit card bill payments.

TL;DR, It will shake things up for Cred.

PS: I built & scaled credit card bill payments at Amazon Pay India. So, got some gyaan around it 😀.

Here’s the thread 🧵

[Shreyas Doshi @shreyas]

As a leader, how can you
- Make a major, singular impact
- Truly empower team members
- Grow them with “stretch tasks”
- Create flow for self & others
- Avoid burnout

Answer: Radical Delegation

(note: not for everyone, but game-changing for leaders & teams who are ready for it)

[Dmitri Pavlutin @panzerdp]

Technical debt explained in a good example:

[SH @GamingX]

@zoo_bear Can you please help and spread the word?

[Kalpesh Singh @knowkalpesh]

Hiring Alert 🚨

Are you a Ninja frontend developer? At least a rockstar developer? Okay, I’m not looking for them.

If you are passionate about frontend and love mobile development in React Native then I have an offer for you.
I work for IN Ads team at @amazon

[Ankit Muchhala @ankit_muchhala]

We're looking for experienced frontend engineers to join our team at @getpostman. If you love APIs, enjoy working with JS and cannot stand misaligned icons, you are the person we are looking for 😃

DM a short intro and resume link. RTs appreciated.

[I Am Devloper @iamdevloper]

as a self-taught programmer, you just get better at guessing correctly over and over

[Sam Saccone @samccone]

I've been programming for a while now and yesterday was the first time I have ever actually needed to use a binary search.

While I appreciate that it was in my proverbial toolbox I also think that gatekeeping during interviews on this class of knowledge is a great mistake.

[Arjun S Kumar @arjunskumar]

Onwards and upwards! ;)

[Kalpesh Singh @knowkalpesh]

Yesterday I completed a year at @amazon

On 18th August 2019, I completed a year in Bengaluru.

Met a lot of people and I see I grew personally more than professionally.

Thanks for people in our community and mentor like @arjunskumar

[Arjun S Kumar @arjunskumar]

@knowkalpesh haha! Perfect!

[Arjun S Kumar @arjunskumar]

@_kamlesh_ @knowkalpesh Thanks @_kamlesh_ for putting this together and helping out @knowkalpesh ! This has been super helpful for us!

[Arjun S Kumar @arjunskumar]

@knowkalpesh Which I find to bring clarity to engineers thoughts. This was a philosophy I adopted while working on Node JS backend ( callbacks to be precise ) which helped me think as *handle worst case scenarios, rest will fall in place*!

[Arjun S Kumar @arjunskumar]

@knowkalpesh And most often, once this is laid out, it just goes down to building UIs for different cases!

[Arjun S Kumar @arjunskumar]

A big concern that’s a worry to all of us. https://t.co/r7l3R7aiHP