Cat Hicks
@grimalkina.bsky.social
Psychologist for the humans of tech. Author of The Psychology of Software Teams (2026). Founder: Catharsis Consulting (strategy * science). she/her 🏳️🌈 https://www.drcathicks.com/
Host at: https://www.changetechnically.fyi/
Host at: https://www.changetechnically.fyi/
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Cat Hicks
@grimalkina.bsky.social
· Jul 22
Andor and the psychology of resistance - Change, Technically
SHOW NOTES Dominic Packer’s Normative Conflict Model of Dissent is described in this paper as well as his other work: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1088868307309606 Cat also mentio...
www.changetechnically.fyi
NEW Change, Technically just dropped where we go all in on Star Wars: Andor and the Psychology of Resistance ! 🤩
www.changetechnically.fyi/2396236/epis...
www.changetechnically.fyi/2396236/epis...
Reposted by Cat Hicks
A related thing I’ve seen is decent software folks saying “at least what I do isn’t critical” as a way to distance themselves from the perceived responsibility/stress/burden of the things we work on, knowing the tradeoffs we make.
We’re given huge amounts of power and should act accordingly.
We’re given huge amounts of power and should act accordingly.
all I see are "they're not engineers" "that's not what engineering is" I want a thick good really real piece to sink my teeth in about all the parts of this that ARE "like engineering"
November 24, 2025 at 10:55 PM
A related thing I’ve seen is decent software folks saying “at least what I do isn’t critical” as a way to distance themselves from the perceived responsibility/stress/burden of the things we work on, knowing the tradeoffs we make.
We’re given huge amounts of power and should act accordingly.
We’re given huge amounts of power and should act accordingly.
Reposted by Cat Hicks
lmao @ people claiming the DOGE staff weren't engineers
like we all haven't worked with that guy who is like "we don't need tests" and "I can merge my own code"
Just because they don't represent what we WANT to be doesn't mean we get to disown them.
like we all haven't worked with that guy who is like "we don't need tests" and "I can merge my own code"
Just because they don't represent what we WANT to be doesn't mean we get to disown them.
all I see are "they're not engineers" "that's not what engineering is" I want a thick good really real piece to sink my teeth in about all the parts of this that ARE "like engineering"
November 24, 2025 at 5:02 PM
lmao @ people claiming the DOGE staff weren't engineers
like we all haven't worked with that guy who is like "we don't need tests" and "I can merge my own code"
Just because they don't represent what we WANT to be doesn't mean we get to disown them.
like we all haven't worked with that guy who is like "we don't need tests" and "I can merge my own code"
Just because they don't represent what we WANT to be doesn't mean we get to disown them.
Reposted by Cat Hicks
Software engineering needs a reckoning and a professionalism. It needs actual teeth with which individual workers can use to push back and say "no, I won't put my name on this work". It needs the structure in place for software to be held to a standard of quality befitting its societal criticality
November 24, 2025 at 8:20 PM
Software engineering needs a reckoning and a professionalism. It needs actual teeth with which individual workers can use to push back and say "no, I won't put my name on this work". It needs the structure in place for software to be held to a standard of quality befitting its societal criticality
RIP my mentions but it's time to do my second Thanksgiving shopping run and this basque cheesecake is the priority ❤️
November 24, 2025 at 9:43 PM
RIP my mentions but it's time to do my second Thanksgiving shopping run and this basque cheesecake is the priority ❤️
Reposted by Cat Hicks
There are lots of people doing great tech work in govt, I agree. You could however see the doubling down on “savior/expert” theme during DOGE when my timeline was flooded w/ “but DOGE work already exists, look at USDS et al” Lots of amazing work is now in the trash bc tech was seen as a work around
November 24, 2025 at 6:24 PM
There are lots of people doing great tech work in govt, I agree. You could however see the doubling down on “savior/expert” theme during DOGE when my timeline was flooded w/ “but DOGE work already exists, look at USDS et al” Lots of amazing work is now in the trash bc tech was seen as a work around
Meanwhile on mastodon: apparently I am to blame for DOGE because I have had a youtube account. Classic.
November 24, 2025 at 5:51 PM
Meanwhile on mastodon: apparently I am to blame for DOGE because I have had a youtube account. Classic.
My thread is breaking containment enough across a couple platforms that I'm starting to get the standard pushbacks about why we SHOULDN'T talk about "engineering" culpability as a part of anything to do with DOGE which is really making me feel like I DO need to write this piece
November 24, 2025 at 5:07 PM
My thread is breaking containment enough across a couple platforms that I'm starting to get the standard pushbacks about why we SHOULDN'T talk about "engineering" culpability as a part of anything to do with DOGE which is really making me feel like I DO need to write this piece
Reposted by Cat Hicks
My SWAG is that many tech people who do not agree with DOGE's aims nonetheless agree with their methods.
There actually has not been enough reflection in the tech community about DOGE
November 24, 2025 at 4:45 PM
My SWAG is that many tech people who do not agree with DOGE's aims nonetheless agree with their methods.
There actually has not been enough reflection in the tech community about DOGE
November 24, 2025 at 4:10 PM
There actually has not been enough reflection in the tech community about DOGE
As a former learning scientist married to a teacher I don't believe a single thing big social media accounts post when they say "my kid's teacher did x" or "said x" and I'm surprised so many people do
November 23, 2025 at 6:58 PM
As a former learning scientist married to a teacher I don't believe a single thing big social media accounts post when they say "my kid's teacher did x" or "said x" and I'm surprised so many people do
I love this thread as a femme spouse who does three days of cooking, but In A Queer Way to host an epic Friendsgiving
definitely if you're the femme spouse who does most or all of the cooking . . . please cook what you want. do something fiddly that you enjoy instead of feeling stressed out the whole time. make a regular meal but with a special dessert or something. or just order buffalo chicken pizza.
November 23, 2025 at 4:04 PM
I love this thread as a femme spouse who does three days of cooking, but In A Queer Way to host an epic Friendsgiving
sickening
Some incredible details in this piece
*one DOGE faction was planning the future of the US government at a venture capital firm
*illegally communicating on Signal to avoid transparency laws was deeply embedded into organizational culture to be taken for granted
*one DOGE faction was planning the future of the US government at a venture capital firm
*illegally communicating on Signal to avoid transparency laws was deeply embedded into organizational culture to be taken for granted
November 22, 2025 at 9:03 PM
sickening
Reposted by Cat Hicks
"When you remove scientists from science, you don’t get truth. You get ideology. " Signed D3- Deb, Dan, and @drdemetre.bsky.social
We are former CDC officials. RFK Jr.'s change to vaccine guidance is propaganda.
Under Secretary Kennedy, CDC materials can no longer be assumed to reflect scientific authority.
www.ms.now
November 21, 2025 at 11:01 PM
"When you remove scientists from science, you don’t get truth. You get ideology. " Signed D3- Deb, Dan, and @drdemetre.bsky.social
As a psych grad student I had a serial harasser on my dissertation committee, who I removed from my committee as soon as I heard about it. I was strongly advised to not do this because I was told he would retaliate against me and blacklist me as much as he could. I did it on principle & bc--
My wife was sexually harassed by Miles Hewstone as a phd student. He was still asked to review her (and other women he harassed) for jobs and promotions. This is so fucked up.
Thankfully, she and many other women testified against him and something was finally done. This is her take on his case:
Thankfully, she and many other women testified against him and something was finally done. This is her take on his case:
November 22, 2025 at 5:07 PM
As a psych grad student I had a serial harasser on my dissertation committee, who I removed from my committee as soon as I heard about it. I was strongly advised to not do this because I was told he would retaliate against me and blacklist me as much as he could. I did it on principle & bc--
Reposted by Cat Hicks
I work with students and young researchers, who are more focused, brilliant, and resourceful than I was at their ages, and extraordinarily savvy re critical media consumption and AI. This is deeply cynical viralbait doom-mongering, an attempt to whip up aging Millennials re Kids These Days.
It’s fun to think about the surgeon who will botch your surgery 20 years from now and what he’s doing at this moment. He just ran all his homework through ChatGPT. He just read that article about vaccines and autism at the CDC website. He just watched an Instagram video about the moon landing hoax.
November 21, 2025 at 2:53 PM
I work with students and young researchers, who are more focused, brilliant, and resourceful than I was at their ages, and extraordinarily savvy re critical media consumption and AI. This is deeply cynical viralbait doom-mongering, an attempt to whip up aging Millennials re Kids These Days.
I made some tiktoks about how hard it is to see science funding cut and had to block a bunch of folks joyfully and cheerfully celebrating it. Pretty much convinced we have seen a really massive change in the public on science and not convinced it will change back in my lifetime
Just an absolutely gutting essay by Tatiana Schlossberg, a writer, mother of two young children, and cousin of RFK Jr who is dying of leukemia.
www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
November 22, 2025 at 4:44 PM
I made some tiktoks about how hard it is to see science funding cut and had to block a bunch of folks joyfully and cheerfully celebrating it. Pretty much convinced we have seen a really massive change in the public on science and not convinced it will change back in my lifetime
Just thinking about all the threats and insults I got on here for criticizing an MIT preprint
An MIT Student Awed Top Economists With His AI Study—Then It All Fell Apart www.wsj.com/economy/aida...
An MIT Student Awed Top Economists With His AI Study—Then It All Fell Apart
Aidan Toner-Rodgers shot to academic fame in a field hungry for new insights and revelatory research. But a computer scientist thought something seemed off.
www.wsj.com
November 22, 2025 at 4:33 PM
Just thinking about all the threats and insults I got on here for criticizing an MIT preprint
Reposted by Cat Hicks
In the last twenty years of my journey as a scientist and organizer, only three pieces about mathematics have brought me to tears.
In this post, I write about the common thread in each of those pieces &the privilege of seeing that inspiration come full circle.
natematias.medium.com/gravity-and-...
In this post, I write about the common thread in each of those pieces &the privilege of seeing that inspiration come full circle.
natematias.medium.com/gravity-and-...
Gravity and Grace in the Science of AI
Learning from stories that brought me to tears through a hopeful commitment to the truth
natematias.medium.com
November 22, 2025 at 1:09 AM
In the last twenty years of my journey as a scientist and organizer, only three pieces about mathematics have brought me to tears.
In this post, I write about the common thread in each of those pieces &the privilege of seeing that inspiration come full circle.
natematias.medium.com/gravity-and-...
In this post, I write about the common thread in each of those pieces &the privilege of seeing that inspiration come full circle.
natematias.medium.com/gravity-and-...
I think this a lot. I've had a lot of conversations with people with complex health issues (as I do) and the attribution biases across these communities are strong. Things that are salient to our experience become explanations even though many things are happening to us that we don't perceive.
The fact that asymptomatic Covid cases can lead to Long Covid IMO probably leads to more people attributing illness to vaccine complications than what could actually occurring, when the underlying problem could be a Covid infection.
November 21, 2025 at 9:07 PM
I think this a lot. I've had a lot of conversations with people with complex health issues (as I do) and the attribution biases across these communities are strong. Things that are salient to our experience become explanations even though many things are happening to us that we don't perceive.
The tech content on TikTok is honestly just so unbelievably full of stereotypes about how coding requires a special brain or whatever, or extremely gender coded stereotypes about roles. Exhausting stuff.
November 21, 2025 at 5:51 AM
The tech content on TikTok is honestly just so unbelievably full of stereotypes about how coding requires a special brain or whatever, or extremely gender coded stereotypes about roles. Exhausting stuff.
I crushed a hard workout today and two years ago I was struggling to even walk my dog. It's amazing.
No one who hasn't done it can understand what it takes to commit again and again and again and again and never give up on yourself after such severe illness and I wish I could put it on my resume 😂😭
No one who hasn't done it can understand what it takes to commit again and again and again and again and never give up on yourself after such severe illness and I wish I could put it on my resume 😂😭
November 20, 2025 at 10:11 PM
I crushed a hard workout today and two years ago I was struggling to even walk my dog. It's amazing.
No one who hasn't done it can understand what it takes to commit again and again and again and again and never give up on yourself after such severe illness and I wish I could put it on my resume 😂😭
No one who hasn't done it can understand what it takes to commit again and again and again and again and never give up on yourself after such severe illness and I wish I could put it on my resume 😂😭
You know, before I got into tech and before I started working on the psychology of software teams I had only heard the stereotypes from the outside and the stereotypes are just so limiting. Like it's hard to wrap your head around how many identity barriers there are INSIDE of technical communities
So I think they underestimate and think it's just a bunch of bad libraries or crappy engineers
Instead of understanding that tackling it is hard & there's a reason why platform teams exist (to create a comprehensible layer on top of the infinite architectural possibilities so you can work with it)
Instead of understanding that tackling it is hard & there's a reason why platform teams exist (to create a comprehensible layer on top of the infinite architectural possibilities so you can work with it)
November 20, 2025 at 9:06 PM
You know, before I got into tech and before I started working on the psychology of software teams I had only heard the stereotypes from the outside and the stereotypes are just so limiting. Like it's hard to wrap your head around how many identity barriers there are INSIDE of technical communities
This sparked a tangential question for me
Do existing developer experience surveys ever measure developers' sense of agency in terms of idea success? for instance, your perception of how much of the time your own ideas get implemented and live on in your work, vs implementing other people's?
Do existing developer experience surveys ever measure developers' sense of agency in terms of idea success? for instance, your perception of how much of the time your own ideas get implemented and live on in your work, vs implementing other people's?
a question around this for me would be, how quickly can I take an idea that is within the basic intended scope of the service and implement it? Like time from ideation => implementation
I'd measure how long it takes to INCREASE that scope in some way
I want to optimize both of those separately
I'd measure how long it takes to INCREASE that scope in some way
I want to optimize both of those separately
November 20, 2025 at 8:34 PM
This sparked a tangential question for me
Do existing developer experience surveys ever measure developers' sense of agency in terms of idea success? for instance, your perception of how much of the time your own ideas get implemented and live on in your work, vs implementing other people's?
Do existing developer experience surveys ever measure developers' sense of agency in terms of idea success? for instance, your perception of how much of the time your own ideas get implemented and live on in your work, vs implementing other people's?
This is such a fun empirical question
November 20, 2025 at 8:20 PM
This is such a fun empirical question
Having the desire to bake pastry for some goddamn reason*
*probably because I'm nearing the end of a demanding complex project, at which point I always need to assign myself something like "sew yourself a tailored suit" or "how about you learn to make croissants"
*probably because I'm nearing the end of a demanding complex project, at which point I always need to assign myself something like "sew yourself a tailored suit" or "how about you learn to make croissants"
November 19, 2025 at 7:43 PM
Having the desire to bake pastry for some goddamn reason*
*probably because I'm nearing the end of a demanding complex project, at which point I always need to assign myself something like "sew yourself a tailored suit" or "how about you learn to make croissants"
*probably because I'm nearing the end of a demanding complex project, at which point I always need to assign myself something like "sew yourself a tailored suit" or "how about you learn to make croissants"