Important, Read This First You’re about to read a blog post with a lot of advice. Learning from those who came before us is instrumental to success, but we often forget an important caveat. Almost all advice is contextual, yet it is rarely delivered with any context. “You just need to charge more!” says the company […]
All the best engineering advice I stole from non-technical people
As I focus on becoming a better manager of engineers, I have been reflecting more and more on the advice that produced a 10X boost in my…
Undervalued Software Engineering Skills: Writing Well
I have been coaching several experienced software engineers to further grow professionally, since transitioning [https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/things-ive-learned-transitioning-from-engineer-to-engineering-manager/] to being an engineering manager. I have noticed a few skills that people often underestimate the importance of developing. Skills that add a
21 Lessons From 14 Years at Google
Lessons learned from 14 years of engineering at Google, focusing on what truly matters beyond just writing great code.
We should rethink how we teach people to code | deadSimpleTech
It's fair to say that the tech industry at the moment is not in a good place. Software engineers tend to be detached, demotivated and unwilling to care much about the work they're doing beyond their paycheck. Code quality is poor on the whole, made worse by the current spate of vibe coding and whatever other febrile ideas come out of Sam Altman's brain. Much of the software that we write is either useless or actively hurts people. And the talented, creative people that we most need in the industry are pushed to the margins of it.
How to keep learning in the age of LLMs | Oğuzhan Olguncu
Notes on how I keep learning as a programmer in the age of LLMs
Learn to code. Or don't.
Reasons to learn to code: * You have an offer for a job that involves coding, or could benefit from it * Existing tools don’t serve your needs well, or at all * You enjoy it “Learn to code” is the common refrain for what to do when you’re poor. It’
Small Programming Tricks
A lot of effective engineering comes from the accumulation of small nuggets of knowledge.
Unintuitive Things I’ve Learned about Management (Part 1)
I first started managing people seven years ago, three years after I graduated and got my first design job. At the time, I was woefully…
Theory and Memory: Two Forces Shaping Software Team Knowledge
How insights from cognitive science and social psychology explain why software knowledge is so hard to preserve
Eight Habits of Expert Software Designers: An Illustrated Guide
The best designers employ specific habits, learned practices, and observed principles when they work. Here are a few of them.
WordPress is not easy
WordPress isn’t easy. There, I said it. I’m willing to bet if you’ve spent any time using the software, you probably feel the same way. Even if you’re a WordPress expert, using the software is not without frustration. As a consultant, what I find even more frustrating, is the difficulty I have in recommending WordPress to a lot of new-to-the-web users or users with strict goals to launch their new business online. I’m mentoring an accelerator class and 90% of the students need to make their mark on the web. Sounds easy enough, but within a deluge of learning business legalese, accelerator students can’t come up for air to learn the best practices of WordPress too. Quite frankly, they shouldn’t have to. In the end, there’s simply too many moving parts for the newcomer to comprehend.
What I learned building an opinionated and minimal coding agent
Lessons I learned while building my own coding agent from scratch.
How I stopped worrying and learned to love the easy fix
On the balance between perfect solutions and pragmatic fixes in software engineering
