Looks Good, Works Well

Bringing Change to Life

Bringing change in teams is hard work. Bringing change to organizations is hard work. Bringing change to compananies is really hard work. And almost impossible. Bringing change is about persistance rooted in strong belief in core principles. It is also about improvization. Listening and reflecting. This allows you embrace the

Understanding Notifications in Trello

When we starting using Trello for candidate tracking [https://www.looksgoodworkswell.com/using-trello-for-candidate-tracking/], we were highly motivated to have it handle all our communication and workflow for candidates. > @trello [https://twitter.com/trello] why isn't there a simple way for a user to be notified by email specifically when they

Using Trello for Candidate Tracking

As we started the new year, we have changed the way we do recruiting at PayPal. We create an always active pipeline based on a few key profiles. We have also started aligning our engineering practices around these profiles (web application, mobile, and services engineering). They don't fit everything of

Why MacPaint's Original Canvas was 416 Pixels Wide

Back in the mid 80's after we had finished writing [https://www.looksgoodworkswell.com/all-i-really-need-to-know-i-learned-from-a-128k-mac/] GATO for the Macintosh [http://www.bytecellar.com/2006/03/15/of_ajax_gato_an/], I took some time to explore the underbelly of the Mac. One of these times I discovered that a single

James Mickens Pontificates on Web Developers

If you haven't discovered James Mickens [http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/people/mickens/] then I have a treat for you. James is a Researcher in the Distributed Systems Group at Microsoft and writes hilarious articles under the moniker ;Login: Logout. His writing reminds me of the style of Dave Barry

Application Engineering - Hiring!

2014 is a great time to join PayPal. With our move to NodeJS and the release of our open source KrakenJS code base, we are rewriting and redesigning all of our experiences -- all on NodeJS. Productivity is the Reason Elsewhere we have written [https://www.paypal-engineering.com/2013/11/

My First "Hour of Code"

During the week of Dec 9-15th over a half billion lines of code were written [http://csedweek.org/] for the hour of code initiative by over 20 million people. This got me reflecting on my own original "hour of code". It was a seminal moment in my life. I had

New Home for My Blog

I am excited to announce that I have moved my blog from Blogger [http://looksgoodworkswell.blogspot.com] to Ghost [https://www.looksgoodworkswell.com/], a NodeJS blogging platform. Background In 2005 when I started the blog, the easiest thing to do was to snag a blogspot account and start posting. Over

Hiring in Austin

My team in PayPal Austin is hiring. We are looking for user interface engineers that can span the stack from node.js up to backbone.js. As part of the change [fluent-talk-releasing-the-kraken-clash-of-the-titans-nodejs-paypal] we have been bringing to PayPal, our UIE teams partner closely with our design teams following the Lean

Fluent Talk: Releasing the Kraken. Clash of the Titans: NodeJS & PayPal

In a most unlikely place. We have unleashed the Kraken.

Key Position: Sr. UIE Manager for our Wallet team

I have discussed [why-you-should-work-with-me-at-paypal] in the past that we have been on a mission to change the culture, technology, process and experiences at PayPal. 15 months into my adventure here I have never been more excited. Starting last year we moved away from Java & JSP for rendering our UIs and

Indispensable Principles for Debugging - Book Recommendation

[http://www.debuggingrules.com/Debugging_cover.gif]Don't judge a book [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002H5GSZ2/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B002H5GSZ2&linkCode=as2&tag=looksgoodwork-20] by it's cover [http://www.debuggingrules.com/Debugging_cover.gif] (or it's website [http://www.

User Interface Engineering Disciplines & Skills

One of the first things I did when I joined PayPal was rename the "webdev" to "User Interface Engineering". Now while there is nothing wrong with the title web developer, at PayPal webdevs were considered one step below a "dev". Changing a title in itself is fairly meaningless. But at

List of Mockup/Prototyping Tools

Started keeping a list of these tools. No particular order. Createlyhttp://creately.com/ Axure RPhttp://axure.com/ InVisionhttp://www.InVisionApp.com [http://www.invisionapp.com/] Mockingbirdhttps://gomockingbird.com/ Balsamiq Mockupshttp://balsamiq.com/products/mockups Ratchethttp://maker.github.com/ratchet/ Justinmindhttp://www.justinmind.com/ HotGloohttp://www.hotgloo.com/ FlairBuilderhttp://www.flairbuilder.

Lean UX & Agile Development. Rationalizing the Two Methodologies

I really enjoy Silicon Valley Code Camp [http://www.siliconvalley-codecamp.com/] . Lots of speakers, lots of local attendees. Very informal and always a good crowd. No different today. Really engaged audience. One topic I covered was how Lean UX [http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/2011/03/07/lean-ux-getting-out-of-the-deliverables-business/] and Agile [http:

Three Key Principles to Operating as a LeanUX Team

Coaching teams here at PayPal on what it takes to operate like in a LeanUX manner. I have typically boiled it down to just 3 key principles. Three Principles 1. Maintain a Shared Understanding at All Times This was key when I was at Netflix [http://52weeksofux.com/post/2403607066/

The Who, What, How of Satisfaction for Frontend Engineers

This is an over-simplified view. But I was thinking about what really matters to frontend engineers (or any engineers) in their jobs (besides money). It matters WHO they work with * They want to be challenged by people smarter than themselves. * They want to work for someone who gets it and

Forming a new Accessibility Team at PayPal -- Welcome Victor Tsaran & Srinivasu Chakravarthula!

I am excited to share that we are formalizing the already ongoing effort at PayPal in Accessibility by forming an official Accessibility team. And to kick things off right, I am thrilled to announce that Victor Tsaran [http://www.linkedin.com/in/victortsaran] will be joining PayPal on Monday 9/

Looking for "UI Engineer, Developer Experience"

NOTE: We continue to look for great talent in this space. However, this particular job has been filled. Just one of the many places we are upping the game at PayPal is in our developer experiences. A few months back PayPal formed an Application Platform team. Part of its charter

Why You Should Work with Me at PayPal

I have blogged a little [my-paypal-update-paypal-rocks] in the past as to why I came to PayPal [excited-about-my-new-role-sr-director-web-development-paypal]. Today I want to talk about why you should come to PayPal to work with me. To start with let's be frank. Last year when I contemplated joining PayPal it was clear PayPal

Parenthesis of Forgetfulness

I am reading the excellent book Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals about our Everyday Deceptions [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805092811/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=looksgoodwork-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=0805092811&adid=1SC7KE1D0B9EPET86D6Q] In discussing how magicians manipulate attention (looking at

My Lean UI Tech Presentation from Open Web Camp 2012

Thanks to John Foliot [http://john.foliot.ca/] for putting on an excellent Open Web Camp. It was especially great as we got to host here at PayPal at our Town Hall facility. Lots of great talks. Check out the presentations at http://openwebcamp.org/slides. The Lean Tech Stack

Anti-Patterns for Lean UX

We are going full bore on LeanUX at PayPal. This presentation just captures a lot of cautions for our teams. These anti-patterns call out bad behaviors or situations that can become bad which will stifle collaboration. Lean UX Anti-Patterns [https://www.slideshare.net/billwscott/lean-ux-antipatterns] from Bill Scott [http://www.

Welcome Crock!

Welcome aboard Doug! Stoked to be working with you again :-) Interested in where PayPal is headed in the world of Javascript/User Interface Engineering? Ping me. bill.scott at paypal.com.

The Experimentation Layer

Designing for Reusability Code reuse [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_reuse] has been a major concern of mine throughout my career. I graduated with a computer science degree and was taught the value and beauty of loosely coupled [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loose_coupling], modular code [http://en.