Why Every Software Engineer Needs a "Brag Document"

At the beginning of this year, as I was drafting my performance review document, much like in previous years, I only highlighted the significant achievements.

They are easy to remember and I was able to go into details.

But, in a 4-quarter cycle when projects are large, you might only have a couple of big wins.

When I was trying to recall all the "small activities" that I performed that could show leadership, ownership, and team spirit, I was just not able to recall any.

The clever bug fixes, the mentoring of junior developers, the hours of debugging that rescued a critical release from disaster – well, all of those slipped through the cracks.

I realized how crucial it is to document all those activities.

In fact, I found out there's a term for such a document, and developers who maintain it swear by its advantages.

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