Matt Vasquez

Measuring quality of K12 education is throwing me for a loop - the Department of Education is by far the hardest government agency I've come across for navigating data. So let's try another tact for adding education metrics into Lat Long Labs. Let's spot check an outcome based metric and see if there's a way to work backwards from there. Could I ask what folks' take is on the data? Would it influence your opinions on schools? On where to live? Are these outcomes you would want to see education measured by? Are there other outcomes that should be considered? I'm all ears!! *data is for the 2021-2022 school year, sources on request

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Frontend performance is *so* important nowadays, but it's almost always done with a bandaid approach... going back to basics & shipping HTML-first, low-bloat, user experience-focused code is the way.

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Is it just me or does 11 AM feel like the perfect time for coffee ☕ and pastry 🥐, or am I just creating my own time zone? 😆 #sunday #breakfast #pastry #coffee #softwaredevelopment #qaautomation #womenengineers #womenintech #austin #linkedintopvoice

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"A user interface is like a joke. If you have to explain it, it's not that good." -Martin LeBlanc This quote is an oldie but goodie. It's a reminder that simplicity and clarity are key in design. Whether we're creating a product, service, or experience, our goal should be to make it easy to understand and use. If users need help understanding it, we've missed the mark. ✌ #UserExperienceDesign #UX #UserInterfaceDesign #UI #ProductDesign #Design #CustomerExperience

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The more I speak to development companies the more they are surprised. They understand the need to provide comprehensive development services to their clients. But they know they are always lacking in one aspect: The ability to provide accessible and compliant websites. It's not their fault. They want to specialize in accessibility. Both from a technical and knowledge perspective. They want to have a competitive edge that solves one of the biggest problems of the user experience. On almost every discovery call, I see time and time again the spark in their eyes when I show them a demo of User1st. When they see a real solution to a real problem.  A solution that enables them to expand their services and client base with ease. It's a no-brainer for development companies that want to stay ahead. #Accesability #Development #Clients

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Building off of yesterday's fictional book announcement (https://lnkd.in/gBAU8nyZ) Here's the next book in the Nate Taylor Management Series.

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I read this amazing blog post over the weekend from Zack Urlocker & thought there were some interesting parallels to empowering decision making on QA teams. My takeaway: Pushing decisions down to the people closest to the work is one of the most powerful ways to increase ownership, accountability, and speed of execution. As QA professionals, we are intimately familiar with the products and systems we test. We understand the requirements, user flows, edge cases, and potential risks better than anyone. By empowering QA teams to make more decisions around testing strategies, prioritization, risk assessment, and quality gates, organizations can unlock several key benefits: Increased Ownership and Accountability - when given autonomy to make decisions, QA teams take greater ownership over the quality of the products they deliver. This drives a sense of accountability and responsibility to ensure thorough testing and high standards. Empowered teams are motivated to proactively identify and mitigate issues. Leveraging Expertise - QA professionals have deep domain knowledge from their hands-on experience with the product. Empowering them to make decisions allows this expertise to be fully leveraged in determining effective testing approaches tailored to the specific product needs. Faster Execution - with the ability to make decisions autonomously, QA teams can streamline testing processes, adapt quickly to changes, and provide timely feedback. This accelerates identification and resolution of issues, enabling faster delivery of high-quality products. Fostering Innovation - when given the freedom to make decisions, QA teams are empowered to get creative and innovative with their testing methodologies. They can experiment with new tools and techniques to continuously improve quality processes. Of course, empowering QA teams requires a foundation of trust from leadership and an investment in training to build decision-making capabilities. But the potential benefits of increased quality, efficiency, and innovation make it well worth the effort. Pushing decisions down cultivates an environment of trust and accountability that unlocks incredible potential. Let's embrace this mindset and empower our QA teams to make more decisions - the quality of our products will be better for it. #QualityAssurance #QATeams #EmployeeEmpowerment #AutonomyAtWork #DecisionMaking

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My initial involvement with .NET was in 2008. I started with WinForms, then UWP, and most recently Blazor, with some Web API work as well. I also did/do some Xamarin.Forms and .NET MAUI on the side. I've worked with SQL Server, Oracle, and SQLite. The last year has broken me. Without work and income for at least a year I've been forced to start tapping retirement funds at least a decade before I had planned. (In fact, I had always hoped to take my last breath at the keyboard trying something new.) The constant fruitless efforts in the job search, including massive numbers of ghosting events; postings I've applied for, never had a response, but continue to be posted; the horribly vague pieces of textual trash called job descriptions; and so on, have made me give up. I just can't do it any more. Without the generosity of friends, right now I'd either be dead, in jail, or living under a bridge. This was not the way I saw my future. I dedicated my career to .NET and I ended up broke and homeless, in massive amounts of debt that can't ever be repaid. So I'm backing away from full-time search. That said, I'm still looking to keep involved with the .NET technologies but in a part-time manner, as well as build upon the meager retirement income. I'm looking for a Blazor or MAUI project to work on, perhaps a lower-priority solo developer effort, demo, or POC requiring around 20 hours a week. If there's some other .NET technology, give me a little time and I'll get up to speed. No charge until I start doing your work! It probably could go unsaid, but I'm not interested in being contacted by recruiters. You're the ones that did this to me with your gross incompetence and terrible work practices. Yes, I'm bitter, and I hope every one of you that ever ghosted me suffers like I am.

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Automation is Crazy Recently I have been putting my head down and learning about automations through Make.com It has opened up a whole new world. This is what I have built today with Nick on YT This was a test automation that I built out in Make.com to learn about "Hidden-API's" Hidden-API's are basically a cheeky way to bypass actually having to log in to paywalled API systems So what does this automation do? Basically, I sourced the hidden API for the Crexi Real Estate platform to get API requests using the "inspect" tool on Google Chrome. Once I had access to the Hidden API and all of the endpoints that gave access to Specific Houses Real-Estate: • Location • Zip code • Address • Agent Just to name a few of the endpoints From there the automation imported this data into a Google Sheet where the data was organized neatly. One bad thing about this automation is that it uses a f*ck ton of Operations in Make.com But since this was just to expand my knowledge I only ran the automation once to make sure it actually worked. Here is the video I followed: https://lnkd.in/epiXWc7i

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What do we mean when we talk about "continuous performance monitoring"? It's all about creating guardrails to prevent #webperf / #ux regressions: 🟡 Performance budgets 🟡 Automated testing 🟡 Detailed diagnostics 🟡 Annotated test history Learn more: https://lnkd.in/gDX_9Zuf #pagespeed #sitespeed #webperformance

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I've often heard leaders in software development describe Product as responsible for the "what" and Engineering the "how". If we're talking about "how the software is built" in terms of the code, then I agree. But what about "how the software behaves" from a UI perspective? This might include: * User flows - what paths they can take through the app * User interactions - hovers, clicks, animations, etc. * Behavior for success vs failure - an error in processing, invalid form input, etc. * Features disabled - when a new feature isn't yet toggled on * Access controls - when a user doesn't have access to perform a function In my mind, "how the app behaves" is a shared responsibility. Moreover, it's a key place of overlap where we need shared language and tooling. Any other things you think fall into that category of "how the app behaves"? #softwareengineering #softwaredesign #productmanagement

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I envision a better alternative to Backstage: reusing an existing script and adding an intuitive interface. That's essentially what most people expect from a self-service portal for their software engineers — nothing more. #internaldeveloperportal #devex #developerexperience

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How to get engineering alignment in a one hour session. It's not through getting in a room and "working it out"  One workshop I facilitated was a couple of days long with the design and PM teams.  Our outcome was some high level user story maps of where we bet we could improve the product experience.  We then used a method called an "assumption audit." which Teresa Torres outlines about in her book, "Continuous Discovery Habits"  We joined in on session of our engineering teams session of their onsite, I took 5-10 minutes explaining the exercise, reading out the story maps, and then directing the engineers to document any assumptions on feasibility, viability, desirability, and usability.  I then sent them a open session Figjam link, and started 10-15 minute stretches for each story map.  Within one hour, every engineer was able to voice their opinions on where we had the riskiest assumptions on that years product roadmap.  A little over a year later (it was a huge initiative), we had fully functioning versions of a couple of these story maps, which resulted in reduced unit economics, reliable fulfillment of one of our flagship services.  Well facilitated working sessions always trump weeks of "brainstorming" and "talking it out" every time. ———————————————————— Hi! I'm Caden Damiano. I'm an interaction designer who facilitates cross-functional product development workshops.  Follow me on LinkedIn for: 👉One podcast clip in the morning with guests who are crushing it in their careers 👉And some evening posts to help you think differently about your career.  See you around!

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Any tips on getting a @nextjs + @turborepo setup to run a bit faster? Cold boot takes ~20 seconds. HMR is about the same.