Why I’m Getting a Second Master’s Degree from HEC Paris

Two months ago, I applied and was accepted to a master’s program at a prestigious business school (ranked #2), HEC Paris. The degree is title Master of Science in Innovation and Entrepreneurship (MSIE). It has 10 normal courses, 10 practical project-based courses and one large team project. The master’s program lasts about one year and a half. Thus the program ends in 2020. However the graduation will be in 2021, because HEC has only one graduation ceremony which is held in its beautiful Paris campus.

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Acquisition of Node University by DevelopIntelligence

After 2.5 years of starting my online school for software engineers Node University and growing it to one of the best resources on Node.js, APIs and AWS, I’m happy to announce the acquisition of Node University by the tech training company DevelopIntelligence. 💰😎🍾 I’ve known and worked with DevelopIntelligence for many years. They deliver outstanding in-person tech training to Fortune 500 companies. The synergies and future of combining in-person with online training are massive. I’m sure the new team will take Node University to the next level! 🚀

Azat’s Management Philosophy

Have you ever wondered what your manager is doing all day? Are you guilty of secretly thinking he/she is playing Candy Crash and attending endless stream of useless meetings? If yes, then you are normal. Management is often invisible and hard to understand. We have tons of books and courses on management but too few good leaders. Sadly, many of us had a bad boss and too of us had a great boss. This post will share my approach to being a good leader.

My management philosophy revolves around three things but one of them is the most important because if we get it right, then all other parts will fall into place. One thing that I care about the most, and which is my main job, is people. I coach, mentor and help people to grow in their careers. I find their strengths and talents. Most people are not that great at self awareness and self observation because their insecurities, desires or emotions interfere with the clear perception of reality. Observing people from outside as a manager or peer gives much better results—a much cleaner and fuller picture.

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Why GraphQL is Taking Over APIs

A few years ago, I managed a team at DocuSign that was tasked with re-writing the main DocuSign web app which was used by tens of millions of users. The APIs didn’t exist yet to support our new shiny front-end app because since the beginning the web app was a .NET monolith. The API team in Seattle was taking the monolith apart and exposing RESTful APIs slowly. This API team consisted of just two engineers and had a release cycle of one month. Our front-end team in San Francisco released every week. The API team release cycle was so long because a lot of (almost all) the functionality had to be tested manually. That’s understandable. It was a monolith without proper automated test coverage after all—when they modified one part, they never knew what can go wrong in other parts of the application.

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