NotesWhat does it mean to get things done in large companies? Most importantly, it means finishing things. How can you finish things in a world where you can keep improving systems indefinitely? It means getting them to a point where the decision-makers at the company are happy.FeedUnfurl
NotesPerhaps what we need is a new understanding of where happiness can exist in this AI-augmented world. Maybe the joy doesnât have to disappear completely â it just shifts. Instead of finding delight in writing the perfect algorithm, perhaps weâll discover satisfaction in the higher-level thinking about system design, in the creative process of describing exactly what we want to build, or in the human aspects of software development that AI canât touch.FeedEmbedUnfurl
NotesOK, so AI doesnât think the same way that people do. Iâm fine with that. Whatâs important to me is that it can do some work for me, work that could also be done by people thinking. Cars (âhorseless carriagesâ) do work that used to be done by horses running. No one now complains that cars work differently than horses.FeedUnfurl
Notes"Vibe Coding" might get you 80% the way to a functioning concept. But to produce something reliable, secure, and worth spending money on, youâll need experienced humans to do the hard work not possible with todayâs models.Unfurl
NotesOne consistent pattern Iâve observed in the past year, since I published "The death of the junior developer", is that junior developers have actually been far more eager to adopt AI than senior devs. Itâs not always true; a few folks have told us that their juniors are scared to use it because they think, somewhat irrationally, that it will take their jobs. (See: Behavioral regret theory. Thanks for the pointer Dr. Daniel Rock!)FeedUnfurl
NotesYou might have already heard of a 10x engineer. Probably too often, actually. If there's such a thing as a 10x engineer, surely there must be a 1x engineer, too?
Of course there is! Let's dig into a non-exhaustive list of what qualities make up a 1x engineer.Unfurl
NotesA steward doesn't jealously guard, or struggle to gain more power. A steward watches what her responsibilities are, ensuring enough to contribute but not so many as to burn out. And she nurtures and cares for the code, to make sure that it continues to serve its purpose. Instead of an adversarial relationship, stewardship promotes partnership: It promotes working with others to figure out how to make the best use of resources, instead of hoarding them for yourself.FeedUnfurl
NotesTo me, all signs point towards software engineering changing radically as a profession to be much more oriented around the what and why of software, and much less around the how. This will cause disruption at a massive scale in the long run. But in the short run, it's just a lot of fun to play with these tools and see what they can do.Unfurl
NotesI feel like half of my social media feed is composed of AI grifters saying software developers are not going to make it. Combine that sentiment with some economic headwinds and it's easy to feel like we're all screwed. I think that's bullshit. The best days of our industry lie ahead.Unfurl
NotesMetaâs size makes it de facto unkillable, and Iâm sure itâll exist in some form for centuries. But itâs my hope that it will exist in the sense that IBM exists today. Theoretically you know itâs out there, but itâs very hard to grasp the point of it and it feels thoroughly irrelevant. Nobody remembers who started it or why.FeedUnfurl
NotesThe framework was pretty helpful for us as a team to optimize (or âforce multiplyâ as we say in the Amazon Principal Tenets) the impact of our super awesome Principal Engineer community. We used the role framework to assess Principal Engineer engagement for our most important projects across Amazon S3/Glacier. In some cases, we changed the role of the Principal Engineer.
NotesSince everyone started using AI, more candidates started clearing the first round with flying colors. The platforms had to recalibrate to let in their target percentage. But they're not measuring the code written by the candidate anymoreâthey're measuring how well the candidate uses an LLM.
Most developers who can actually write this code try to do it themselves. They get marked lower than peers who used AI and completed it faster.
The result? Hiring teams keep raising the bar arbitrarily, trying to find the candidates who are best at prompt engineering their way through a coding test.Unfurl
NotesHiring processes should focus on problem-solving, collaboration, and growth in relevant areas. Unrealistic expectations donât attract the best talent â they just exhaust and discourage it. If companies want adaptable developers, they should focus on the long-term ability to learn, not how fast someone can tackle an arbitrary test. Dropping these absurd assignments and focusing on what really counts could foster a better, more inclusive tech culture.Unfurl
NotesI lost my job in March and Iâve been slowly starting to look for my next thing. Iâve been talking to other folks whoâve been laid off to get a sense of the job market â and the stories theyâre sharing give me flashbacks to twenty years ago.FeedUnfurl
Notesmost (all?) of the senior engineers I know take on a significant amount of helping-other-people work in addition to their individual programming work. The challenge I see me/my coworkers struggling with today isnât so much âwhat?? I have to TALK TO PEOPLE?? UNBELIEVABLE.â and more âwait, how do I balance all of this leadership work with my individual contributions / programming work in a way thatâs sustainable for me? How much of what kind of work should I be doing?âFeedUnfurl
NotesMaybe your goal is best met by building a stable yet undemanding career that leaves plenty of time for family, friends, community, and self improvement.Unfurl
NotesIâm going to go and work with people who make Mozilla not just a job, who have made this my home for 7 years, and who are as passionate about Mozilla & the Open Web as I am.Unfurl
Notes"Old farts" are often excluded from that culture, not because we're lousy coders but because we won't put up with that shit. We have lives, we have families, we have other things that are important to us. We're not about to sleep at our desks and trade watching our kids grow up for the promise of striking it rich. Especially when the people who really strike it rich aren't the ones writing code.Unfurl
Notes"Call it âfill-in-the-blankâ invoicing. Or âpay what you wantâ pricing.<br />
<br />
The notion is, you do the work first, then let the client decide how much to pay for it."Unfurl
Notes"One of the unending sources of frustrations of being an experienced engineer in a company full of fresh graduates is having to deal with new tech leads---many engineers fresh out of school are great designers and engineers, but couldn't lead a team out of a paper bag. It didn't help that Google's internal leadership training was derived from team-building exercises for experienced executives, rather than leadership 101 that would have been appropriate in this situation."
One of the unending sources of frustrations of being an experienced engineer in a company full of fresh graduates is having to deal with new...Unfurl
Notes"One of the unending sources of frustrations of being an experienced engineer in a company full of fresh graduates is having to deal with new tech leads---many engineers fresh out of school are great designers and engineers, but couldn't lead a team out of a paper bag. It didn't help that Google's internal leadership training was derived from team-building exercises for experienced executives, rather than leadership 101 that would have been appropriate in this situation."Unfurl
Notes"One of the most difficult periods in any job is the first few weeks, while you are getting to know your team, the company and your new job. It can be a difficult time for any employee, but it can be even more difficult for employees who are working in remote offices or telecommuting. Getting to know the team and understanding the company culture are much more difficult when you arenât sitting in the corporate office with the rest of your team. However, there are plenty of things that you can do as a remote employee, or as an employer of remote employees, to make that first week a little easier on everyone."Unfurl
Notes"Your employees will love it ... You can hire great people wherever you find them ... You will use better communication tools ... You can still be social ... Your offices will be more fun"Unfurl
Notes"Note that the knowledge for each level is cumulative; being at level n implies that you also know everything from the levels lower than n. "Unfurl
Notes"I donât know what the hell this remote person is doing, so Iâm going to assume heâs stumbling around the house in his underwear." Been there, done that, still closed bugs and checked in code.Unfurl
Notes"One day, I wasnât a speaker at conferences, and then I was. And then a little while later, I was a paid speaker. And now, Iâm a decently paid speaker. Some day, I hope to be a really well-paid speaker"Unfurl
Notes"So. What happens in 10â20 years time to the now quite large number of professional web developers.Do we all just do the same thing weâre doing now. Just with higher version numbers? ... Do we all become managers? ... Is their another industry that will have us?"Unfurl
Notes"So a generalist pays the rent, in the end, by having a reputation (social capital) and a wide-ranging interest (intellectual capital) and trading those for money."FeedUnfurl
Notes"it very often appears to me that regardless of how smart and clever and interesting and fun my fellow writers are on every other imaginable subject, when it comes to money â and specifically their own money â writers have as much sense as chimps on cUnfurl
Notes"Iâve got this theory about what itâs like to be a manager and what itâs like to be a developer ... and I think it explains pretty well why I deeply, profoundly hate the former and dearly, truly love the latter."Unfurl
Notes"The always-on, perpetual freelance culture of Web 2.0 has spawned its own "coworking" spaces, but are these new techno-optimists building sustainable communities?"Unfurl
Notes"The company, which provides software development consulting, has just opened an office in Ann Arbor which will open its doors as a third space of sorts for the local computer community."Unfurl
NotesKind of a fluff piece, doesn't tell me much about what's going on at Google A2. It's all "Wow, kooky Californian office space with weird carpet and massage chairs and sunlight! How can you get any work done?"Unfurl
Notes"many such accomplished and ambitious members of the digital elite still do not think of themselves as particularly fortunate, in part because they are surrounded by people with more wealth"Unfurl
Notes"what kind of advice I would give if I could meet myself at his age, in order to guide the young Allison into a promising engineering career."Unfurl
Notes"The terrifying reality regarding your resume is that for all the many hours you put into fine-tuning, you've got 30 seconds to make an impression on me. Maybe less."Unfurl
Notes"Being a self-employed writer is not a lifestyle that suits everyone. In fact, there are a lot of misconceptions about what the job entails."FeedUnfurl
Notes"A friend emailed and told me to come check out an open house for the Hat Factory, a Coworking community space in San Franciscoâs semi-industrial Dogpatch neighborhood"Unfurl
Notes"Requirements: Laser vision Ability to fly Ability to breath underwater Invisible plane would be a plus Web throwing experince is a big plus"Unfurl
The Hidden Cost of AI Coding â Terrible Software
Eject disk.
Horseless intelligence | Ned Batchelder
Revenge of the junior developer | Sourcegraph Blog
1x Engineer
Ignore the Grifters - AI Isn't Going to Kill the Software Industry â Dustin Ewers
Dan McKinley :: On Misery
Hackerrank was broken - but now it's actually harmful â segfaulte
Please, Stop the Absurd Coding Challenges | _blackentropy
My 20 Year Career is Technical Debt or Deprecated
Charlie's Diary: The writer's lifestyle