Rachael McQuater on Atomic Object

Wizard Consultant Skills – Protection Spells for Saying “No”

Every consultant must learn to say no — to special cases, cool new ideas, extra responsibilities, etc. It's your duty to protect your project. And yourself.

Personal Optimization

On Taking a Step Back: Gracefully Managing Your Commitments When Everything is a Little Too Much

It’s frustrating when you can't keep up with commitments. Self-grace, communication, and humility can go a long way when it feels like things are falling apart.

Web Apps

Efficient Search Autocomplete with React-Redux & Apollo

We made our React- and GraphQL-based search box efficiently generate suggestions as the user types by debouncing the action that generates autosuggestions.

Development Practices

Improve Your Autocomplete Timing with Debouncing

Deboucing minimizes the number of rapid requests a UI autocomplete element makes by waiting a few hundred milliseconds to see if more calls come through.

Growing as Makers

Wizard Developer Skills: Conjuring Joy From Pain

My teammate has a particular talent for taking the most irritating, painful tasks and turning them into fun and interesting problems to solve. I've been cultivating this skill, and

Growing as Makers

Three Questions to Ask Your New Pair (and Yourself!)

If you learn how the other person works, you can integrate it thoughtfully into your own workflow. It’s not always a perfect match, but a little forethought goes a long way!

Growing as Makers

Opening Up at Work – Lessons Learned from a Month of Being My Whole Self

There is a lot to be gained from telling people that you care, and little to be lost. So I’ve been testing a new guideline: Don’t hold back the good things.

Personal Optimization

Why “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” Still Resonates

Covey's masterpiece felt like getting a lifetime’s worth of character lessons and pep talks. "7 Habits" is about how to be good at being a human being.

Growing as Makers

On Becoming a Wizard: Strategies for Keeping Up as a New Developer

Eventually, I realized that the problem wasn’t my failure to remember library names. What made the difference in my understanding was how I asked questions.

Developer Tools

Visualizations: Making Your Data Make Sense [w/Video]

Choosing our data visualizations carefully can make the difference between fruitless data manipulation and a groundbreaking discovery.

News & Events

Atomic at MICWIC 2017: Connecting with Our Peers

MICWIC 2017 brought 7 Atoms to MSU for a weekend of bonding, learning, & networking. It felt great to share what we’ve learned and to hear from other women.

Project & Team Management

Rachael McQuater

Keep up with our latest posts.