I was once out with a team of software engineers who were talking about a challenging project, and one of them said, "It's our job to say what's impossible."
Life Is More Than an Engineering Problem | Los Angeles Review of Books
Julien Crockett speaks with Ted Chiang about the search for a perfect language, the state of AI, and the future direction of technology.
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The Bulk of Software Engineering is Just Plumbing
I read a post online recently about how some software engineer was asked to complete a technically complex, jargon-filled coding challenge over the...
The care and feeding of software engineers (or, why engineers are grumpy) - Human Who Codes
The Official Web Site of Nicholas C. Zakas
Why I Strive to be a 0.1x Engineer
There has been more discussion recently on the concept of a “10x engineer”. 10x engineers are, (from Quora) “the top tier of engineers that are 10x more productive than the average” Productivity I have observed that some people are able to get 10 times more done than me. However, I’d argue that individual productivity is... Read more »
Are We Really Engineers?
This is part one of the Crossover Project. Part two is here and part three is here. A conference talk based on this work is now available here. I sat in front of Mat, idly chatting about tech and cuisine. Before now, I had known him mostly for his cooking pictures on Twitter, the kind that made me envious of suburbanites and their 75,000 BTU woks. But now he was the test subject for my new project, to see if it was going to be fruitful or a waste of time.
The golden mean of design and engineering - The Intercom Blog
For great products to be built, both design and engineering need to be in balance. If you have a super strong engineering team but a weak or underserved design team, you will struggle.
Engineering managers have a new job description
Why engineering managers are expected to be hands-on again and how AI tools are making it possible to stay technically sharp while still leading.
The Product-Minded Software Engineer
Product-minded engineers are developers with lots of interest in the product itself. They want to understand why decisions are made, how people use the product, and love to be involved in making product decisions. They're someone who would likely make a good product manager if they ever decide
Programmer as wizard, programmer as engineer
Context matters. Sometimes we need to get things done, sometimes we need to build things to last.
Writing an engineering strategy.
Once you become an engineering executive, an invisible timer starts ticking in the background. Tick tick tick. At some point that timer will go off, at which point someone will rush up to you demanding an engineering strategy. It won’t be clear what they mean, but they will want it, really, really badly. If we just had an engineering strategy, their eyes will implore you, things would be okay. For a long time, those imploring eyes haunted me, because I simply didn’t know what to give them: what is an engineering strategy?
The Biggest Mistake I See Engineers Make
Throughout my career, the biggest mistake I see engineers make is doing too much work on their own before looping in others. I’ve experienced this mistake as both an IC and a manager. As an IC, it’s a mistake I made many, many times early in my ow...
Gergely Orosz on Twitter / X
What can us, engineers else learn from designers and design engineers? Turns out there’s lots, based on talking with one of the best design engineers in the industry, @Mappletons.Timestamps:00:00 Intro03:24 From anthropology to tech10:18 What does a designer do?18:23 How… pic.twitter.com/wFlNLnUdTI— Gergely Orosz (@GergelyOrosz) September 23, 2026
SF: A Birds of a Feather on Agentic Engineering
I'm Jesse. I make stuff. Software, hardware. Very occasionally, trouble.
Productivity Hacks
Engineers love nothing more than hacking on our own productivity. At its worst, it becomes its own form of procrastination (hence the term…
