Dev Process Consulting
How to Select a Partner Who Delivers Value, Not Inputs
It’s not a secret that you need great engineers to build great products. But great engineers are expensive. And cheap engineers aren’t great. So when your engineering team is at capacity, how do you get that complex feature or product out of the backlog and into the hands of your users without breaking the bank?…
Read MoreHow Generative AI Impacts Software Development at The Gnar
It would be difficult to make it through a day without hearing, reading, or seeing something related to Artificial Intelligence (AI). While the concept of AI is nothing new, there is a new form of AI that has generated a lot of buzz: generative AI. In the simplest terms, generative AI is a system that…
Read MorePlaybook for a Smooth Launch
Recently, I was upgrading the core functionality of a Shopify app that we built for a client. The nature of this app required the majority of the changes to be tested in the production environment. While this wasn’t ideal, sometimes it’s just the way the cookie crumbles. Naturally, this introduced a certain amount of anxiety…
Read MoreHow We Foster Open Dialogue Through Intentional Feedback
Does the phrase “annual review” make you tense up? Or do you find yourself relaxed, maybe even excited with the anticipation of new opportunities? An employee’s answer to this question can say a lot about the culture of the company they’re working for. It can also be a pretty good indicator of whether they have…
Read MoreOur Code Review Process: More than Quality Assurance
Just like writers during the editing process, programmers review each other’s work, provide feedback, and work together to create a more refined, higher-quality end product. At a basic level, this process helps ensure code quality and brings potential defects to the surface. More than that, it helps developers transfer and grow knowledge, resulting in continuously…
Read MoreBuzz Off, FizzBuzz!: How We Interview at The Gnar
Generic engineering challenges like FizzBuzz are the worst. If you’re a developer, you may have groaned reading the last sentence, and we sympathize. If not, here’s the scoop: The interview process in the world of software development isn’t quite like other industries. In addition to the standard “what are your strengths and weaknesses?” questions, most…
Read MoreExploding Consulting Myths: Support
The job of a software consultant is exciting and dynamic. We enjoy being consultants because we welcome a new challenge, we embrace different perspectives, and we love continually working with the latest tech. And as we’ve demonstrated in previous installments, those benefits don’t have to come at the expense of a welcoming team and a…
Read MoreExploding Consulting Myths: Work
Ask someone at The Gnar for their impression of a consulting job before and after they joined the team, and you will likely hear two different stories. At The Gnar we put a premium on our team and our culture. In order to do this, we actively resist many of the stereotypical characteristics of a…
Read MoreMake Yourself Accessible: Legacy Rails Applications
This is the third in a three-part series on “what accessibility actually looks like when you’re implementing it in a Rails app.” Part One covered some of the moral, ethical and professional rationale for making a site that adequately serves as many people as possible. Part Two covered implementing accessibility checks in a brand-new application,…
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