Feb 1, 2021Digital Security Policy Template for NonprofitsDigital security is all about tradeoffs: nonprofits have limited resources, and need to carefully assess risks and decide which threat scenarios are most critical. In this article we outline strategies for assessing risk, choosing security objectives, and provide sample policies to use as starting points. Assessing Risk To decide how best to…Cybersecurity9 min readCybersecurity9 min read
Jan 22, 2021New Year’s Resolution: Improve Your Personal Digital Security2020 was an incredibly hard year, and many of the challenges we faced in 2020 are still with us in 2021. In times of crisis, trauma and uncertainty, it is easy to feel out of control. …Security6 min readSecurity6 min read
Mar 27, 2020Protect Yourself From the COVID-19 TrollsAs we collectively try to survive a global pandemic, many businesses, nonprofits, and schools are moving work online. As the most remarkable and terrible event of our lifetimes unfolds, the focus of our collective attention has shifted almost exclusively to COVID-19. And unfortunately so has the focus of much of…Covid 195 min readCovid 195 min read
Apr 19, 2019How We Hire Tech FolksHello world, I’m the CTO of MoveOn, and I’m hiring a senior software engineer. This article is about MoveOn’s hiring process for this role. To candidates reading this: my goal is to make our process as clear as possible. To hiring managers reading this: my goal is to open source…Hiring12 min readHiring12 min read
Feb 11, 2019The State of the Union of Political Tech 2019Resistance and Innovation: 2018 Year In Review 2018 was a year of sustained progressive resistance against Trump’s toxic agenda, culminating in a midterm election with record turnout that ended GOP control of the House. This resistance was fueled by the energy and attention of millions of Americans who personally felt the threat of the Trump administration. …Politics16 min readPolitics16 min read
Jul 19, 2018Tech Lead Survival GuideWhen I first started my job as CTO at MoveOn 3 years ago, I was immediately overwhelmed: within hours of logging on for my first day I had 100 unread emails, a new all-remote organizational culture to figure out and navigate, I was plunged into the midst of a high…Software Development27 min readSoftware Development27 min read
Jun 16, 2018How to Build a Software Engineering Culture Where Everyone Can ThriveThe media loves to tell war stories about sexism, racism, and other forms of prejudice in the tech world. While shedding light on systemic problems is good journalism, for people interested in tech careers, reading story after story about the culture problems in tech can feel at best like the…Agile14 min readAgile14 min read
Jun 16, 2018The Software Engineering Learning PlanSome software engineers have computer science degrees, others went to coding bootcamps, and others are self-taught. In my professional experience, software engineers with computer science degrees are in the minority, and the majority of professional software engineers are self-taught. Partly this is because computer science is a relatively young field…Programming7 min readProgramming7 min read
Jun 3, 2018What are some ways to inspire girls to embrace technology?An earlier version of this essay was originally published Nov 12, 2013 on Quora as a response to a question asked by Sheryl Sandberg: “What are some ways to inspire girls to embrace technology?”. Today, I’d like to challenge the framing of this question in two ways. Equal access to…Women In Tech9 min readWomen In Tech9 min read
Jan 9, 2018Meltdown and Spectre: what you can do to protect yourselfYou may have read about frightening sounding exploits made public last week known as ‘Meltdown’ and ‘Spectre’. You can find a good overview of what these exploits are here: https://spectreattack.com/ In a nutshell, these are design flaws present in most computers, including your phone, laptop and also all the computers…Cyber Security Awareness4 min readCyber Security Awareness4 min read
