The Curious Engineer

All blogs / Engineering management / careers

Tech and Tea

jeanhsu.substack.com

Navigating the messiness of life with a career in startups. Musings on engineering leadership, teamwork, parenting, partnership, and creative self-expression. Click to read Tech and Tea, by Jean Hsu, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.

Engineering management / careersEssays / personal

’20’21’22’23’24’25’26
Posts
108 from 19 Dec 2020 to 25 Oct 2026
Posting
monthly (20 in the last year)
Kind
personal blog
Feed
https://jeanhsu.substack.com/feed

2026 15

  1. Making Space for Not Knowing (Especially in AI)
  2. The Beginning of a New Chapter
  3. Unfortunately-fortunately stories
  4. Still Proving Myself, Long After Anyone Was Watching
  5. Seasons, seasons, seasons
  6. Thoughts on writing without AI, being offline, and course promotion.
  7. Behind the Scenes of Navigating the AI Shift
  8. Being a Human Engineer in the AI Era
  9. Performance Reviews Are the Scorecard of Capitalism (And Why That Should Free You)
  10. Lessons Learned Running Our First DRI Your Career Cohort
  11. A Day in the Life of a Solo-ish Builder
  12. No one else will manage your career for you.
  13. A Season of Creative Partnerships
  14. Announcing The Engineering Manager Survival Guide
  15. Making Space After Burnout

2025 22

  1. 2025 Year in Review
  2. Behind the Scenes of DRI Your Career
  3. Announcing DRI Your Career
  4. A fun end-of-year gift for you! 🎁
  5. Building Community Tech
  6. What if hard work felt easier?
  7. Creating Space: Fall Cohort is Open 🍂
  8. How to know the right next step when everything feels uncertain
  9. Coaching Toolkit: Sitting With the Unknown
  10. 9 Things from My Summer (So Far)
  11. Coaching Toolkit: Balance coaching to find new perspectives
  12. Last chance to join Creating Space!
  13. Making Space When the World Feels Heavy
  14. Creating Space: A 6-Week Journaling Course
  15. Important Tech and Tea Updates (and snacks!)
  16. My First Vibe Coding Project: The Trader Joe’s Snack Box Builder
  17. Coaching Toolkit: The Power of Positive Intent
  18. Coaching Toolkit: The Stories We Tell Ourselves
  19. My Buy Nothing baby changed my relationship with consumption
  20. 🍲 Announcing Startup Soup: A Pragmatic Take on Startup Operations
  21. What would you do if you had pizza money?
  22. Under the Old Ginkgo

2024 16

  1. On gentle personal growth in 2024
  2. Leaving my full-time job
  3. Leaning into joy and community
  4. Reader Mailbag: Architect having a hard time letting go
  5. On the path to thriving
  6. Fall Delights
  7. Successful Mindsets for Interviewing
  8. The unfairness of life with a baby
  9. Three Maternity Leaves at Early-Stage Startups
  10. Life is not a race
  11. Progress can be slow
  12. Expectations, planning, and suffering
  13. Saying No to what I feel I should do
  14. Reader Mailbag: Struggling to do it all
  15. All About Career History Interviews
  16. Some thoughts on interviewing

2023 26

  1. Goodbye to 2023
  2. This world was not built for working parents
  3. Seasonal Changes
  4. Issue 5: This working mom's approach to kid's activities is freeing
  5. When your post hits #1 on Hacker News
  6. How To Opt Out Of The Career Ladder
  7. Ten food hacks to make your life easier
  8. Bridging the ask vs guess culture gap at work
  9. Ask vs guess culture
  10. Do you keep your wishes secret?
  11. Creativity isn't just for painters and poets
  12. I spent my morning talking to an AI chatbot
  13. Saddened by the tech industry
  14. Space to do whatever, at work
  15. Space to create (and bonus kids' art 👩🏻‍🎨)
  16. Hustle culture is over-rated
  17. What I've been eating...
  18. Is crocheting a stuffy a creative endeavor?
  19. Space to do whatever, Part II
  20. Space to do whatever
  21. Small steps, Big dreams
  22. Feelings on top of feelings
  23. How do you want to spend your time?
  24. Comparison and joy: a complicated relationship
  25. Remote work and sick days
  26. Owning your unique experience

2022 19

  1. Transformed into a couch
  2. "Making the most" of spacious time
  3. Twitter, Subscriber Chat, and the Hallway Track
  4. Everybody's Winging It
  5. Friendship after The Great Pause
  6. Finding the joy in feeling tired
  7. Four Tendencies in Remote Work
  8. More than a semblance of self
  9. Being-Doing Balance over Work-Life Balance
  10. Getting cozy in the hallway
  11. If you could have your way...
  12. Making it easier to ask for help
  13. Do you want to climb the career ladder?
  14. Re-adjusting to my sensitive self
  15. What I would tell my 22 year-old self
  16. What is your fantasy for rest?
  17. Permission to be unproductive
  18. Finding anchors in chaotic times
  19. Enjoying the process

2021 9

  1. Letting go of end-of-year shoulds
  2. This is 35
  3. Making sense of minor feelings
  4. leisure time
  5. Comparative suffering, judgment, and more
  6. My immersion in the world of coaching
  7. Life lessons with Avatar Aang
  8. My relationship with writing
  9. Struggling to set 2021 intentions

2020 1

  1. My thoughts