2025–08 My Substack Exclusive Articles
Read them on Substack.
1. What is a Proper Agile Iteration (Sprint)? Part 2: Testing and Coding *
Once a user story (see Part 1) is defined, the next step is implementation. Some readers might want to correct the article’s title to “It should be coding and testing.” However, I chose this title for a reason. A well-defined user story includes clear acceptance criteria, meaning the developer or tester can begin preparing for testing — such as acceptance criteria, outlining steps and creating test data — while the coding is still in progress. You might have heard of relatively popular terms: “Shift-Left Testing” or “Acceptance Test Driven Development”. (Here, let’s focus solely on the process of user story implementation within an Agile Sprint.)
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2. My Advice to Excel as a Software Engineer at a Top Software Company *
In my previous article, I highlighted that software engineers (as permanent employees) at top tech companies earn a high salary, with the potential to make even more through stock options, to achieve financial freedom.
In this article, I share my advice to excel as a software engineer at a top software company.
Am I qualified to advise?
In case someone accuses me of dodging the question.
- I worked at a global tech giant (Nortel Networks) before
- My daughter’s first job is and is still working at FAANG.
(youngest ever for the branch) - I have mentees who did well at FAANG and Microsoft, and they’ve expressed their gratitude for my mentorship (one example is provided below).
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3. My Advice for Software Engineers Pursuing the Path of Solopreneurship, Micro-ISV, or Startup *
In my previous article, I shared strategies for software professionals to achieve financial freedom by creating one-person businesses built around passive-income apps.
For those wondering, “Zhimin, are you really qualified to advise?” — take a look at my article, Going with the trend, I now refer to myself as a “Solopreneur”.
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4. Human Considerations in Mandatory Formal Code Reviews — Part 2 *
Continue from Part 1, the human factors to consider for the mandatory formal code review process:
- 4. Software Engineers: Would you like to pause your current work to review a colleague’s PR?
- 5. Do you really think software developers can effectively spot the majority of real issues just by eyeballing the code changes in a PR?
- 6. Do software developers want to carry the extra responsibility for someone’s code?
- 7. Software engineers are evaluated based on the quality and functionality of their code, not the number of PRs they review.
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5. What is a Proper Agile Iteration (Sprint)? Part 3: Done Done *
I share my view of “Proper Agile Iteration (Sprint)” in this series:
- Part 1: User Story *
- Part 2: Testing and Coding *
- Part 3: Done Done *
- Part 4: Continuous Testing (upcoming)
- Part 5: Showcase (upcoming)
- Part 6: ‘Production’ Deployment (upcoming)
- Part 7: Sustained Pace (upcoming)
‘Done, Done’ is an agile term:
Done Done
“We’re done when we’re production-ready” — The Art of Agile Development book
The first ‘Done,’ by convention, indicates that a developer believes the implementation of the user story is satisfactory based on their own testing. However, it still needs to be verified by another person.
Verified by Business Analyst/Tester Does not meet the second “Done”
The second ‘Done’ is commonly seen as a business analyst or tester verifying the user story based on its acceptance criteria (typically written on the back of the card).
This verification can be manual or automated. If testing is conducted professionally, many so-called ‘agile’ teams consider the work — whether a new feature or bug fix — complete. But in reality, it is NOT.
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Also, for motivated and ambitious software professionals seeking freedom beyond the 9–5, check out my newsletter: “Software Side Hustler”.
- My ‘Boosted’ articles:
- 🎖 ️A Tale of a Deceptive End-to-End Test Automation Engineer
- 🎖 ️Waiting Strategies for Test Steps in Web Test Automation
- 🎖 Correct Wrong “Playwright’s Advantage over Selenium” Part 1: “Playwright is Modern and Faster than Selenium”
- 🎖 A Good Software Testing Process Should Effectively Prevent the Recurrence of the Same Defects in New Releases
- 🎖 Don’t you think it’s absurd that most university IT researchers are focusing on AI and machine learning?
