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Why some engineers get trusted with high-impact work It’s fun and rewarding to work on critical tasks. But there’s only so much important work to go...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
It’s fun and rewarding to work on critical tasks. But there’s only so much important work to go around. Worse still, the chances to work on…
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Mistakes engineers make in large established codebases Working in large established codebases is one of the hardest things to learn as a software engineer....
3 months ago
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3 months ago
Working in large established codebases is one of the hardest things to learn as a software engineer. You can’t practice it beforehand (no…
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Thinking clearly about software You can go a long way as a software engineer without ever managing to think clearly. The feedback...
3 months ago
50
3 months ago
You can go a long way as a software engineer without ever managing to think clearly. The feedback loop of writing and running code is so…
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How I got promoted to staff engineer twice At the beginning of 2021, Zendesk promoted me to staff software engineer. At the end of 2021 I...
3 months ago
48
3 months ago
At the beginning of 2021, Zendesk promoted me to staff software engineer. At the end of 2021 I switched jobs from Zendesk to GitHub. In…
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Giving pushback to leadership Saying no to leadership is sometimes necessary when you’re at the helm of a project. Whether they’re...
3 months ago
47
3 months ago
Saying no to leadership is sometimes necessary when you’re at the helm of a project. Whether they’re proposing a timeline that can’t be…
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Is it cynical to do what your manager wants? When I suggest doing what your management chain wants, people call me cynical. Is it cynical to...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
When I suggest doing what your management chain wants, people call me cynical. Is it cynical to deliberately work on things your company…
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What makes strong engineers strong? As I’ve written about before, what defines a strong engineer is the ability to do tasks that weaker...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
As I’ve written about before, what defines a strong engineer is the ability to do tasks that weaker engineers can’t, even with near…
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What can strong engineers do that weak engineers can't? Right now people are blowing up on Twitter about whether the USA needs to import top talent from...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
Right now people are blowing up on Twitter about whether the USA needs to import top talent from other countries, and if that means that…
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Ratchet effects determine engineer reputation at large companies How do engineers become higher-status or lower-status at large tech companies? In other words, what...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
How do engineers become higher-status or lower-status at large tech companies? In other words, what determines who gets promoted and who…
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Why are big tech companies so slow? Big tech companies spend a lot of time and money building things that a single, motivated engineer...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Big tech companies spend a lot of time and money building things that a single, motivated engineer could build in a weekend. This fact…
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Crushing JIRA tickets is a party trick, not a path to impact Don’t be a JIRA ticket zombie! I think a common experience among ambitious juniors - certainly I did...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
Don’t be a JIRA ticket zombie! I think a common experience among ambitious juniors - certainly I did this once - is to get frustrated at the…
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Protecting your time from predators in large tech companies If you’re a competent software engineer at a large tech company, your time is in very high demand....
2 months ago
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2 months ago
If you’re a competent software engineer at a large tech company, your time is in very high demand. Lots of people will want you to do things…
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Why AI labs offer so many different models Major AI labs these days (i.e. early 2025) offer a wide variety of models. Some are faster and...
2 months ago
40
2 months ago
Major AI labs these days (i.e. early 2025) offer a wide variety of models. Some are faster and cheaper, some are smarter, and now some are…
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Writing a tech blog people want to read My blog has gotten a lot of traffic in the last few months. Here’s what I think I’ve been doing...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
My blog has gotten a lot of traffic in the last few months. Here’s what I think I’ve been doing that’s working, and a few things that have…
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What did DeepSeek figure out about reasoning with DeepSeek-R1? The Chinese AI lab DeepSeek recently released their new reasoning model R1, which is supposedly (a)...
2 months ago
39
2 months ago
The Chinese AI lab DeepSeek recently released their new reasoning model R1, which is supposedly (a) better than the current best reasoning…
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Working fast and slow Some engineers work very consistently, putting in the same hours every day and getting out the same...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Some engineers work very consistently, putting in the same hours every day and getting out the same amount of work. I don’t. Some days I…
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Engineers who won’t commit force bad decisions Some engineers think it’s a virtue to remain non-committal in technical discussions. Should our team...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Some engineers think it’s a virtue to remain non-committal in technical discussions. Should our team build a new feature in an event-driven…
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What it's like working for American companies as an Australian For the last ten years I’ve worked for American tech companies as an Australian based in Australia....
3 months ago
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3 months ago
For the last ten years I’ve worked for American tech companies as an Australian based in Australia. First I worked in a satellite office for…
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How I ship projects at big tech companies I have shipped a lot of different projects over the last ~10 years in tech. I often get tapped to...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
I have shipped a lot of different projects over the last ~10 years in tech. I often get tapped to lead new ones when it’s important to get…
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Are DeepSeek's new models really that fast and cheap? Everyone’s saying that DeepSeek’s latest models represent a significant improvement over the work...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Everyone’s saying that DeepSeek’s latest models represent a significant improvement over the work from American AI labs. If they’re not…
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Grifters, believers, grinders, and coasters Why do engineers get mad at each other so often? I think a lot of programmer arguments bottom out...
4 months ago
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4 months ago
Why do engineers get mad at each other so often? I think a lot of programmer arguments bottom out in a cultural clash between different…
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I don't know how to build software and you don't either Are microservices better than monoliths? Should teams set their own technical direction, or is it...
4 months ago
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4 months ago
Are microservices better than monoliths? Should teams set their own technical direction, or is it better to have that dictated by some…
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How I use LLMs as a staff engineer Software engineers are deeply split on the subject of large language models. Many believe they’re...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Software engineers are deeply split on the subject of large language models. Many believe they’re the most transformative technology to ever…
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Good engineers are right, a lot Amazon infamously has a leadership principle where they say “good leaders are right, a lot”. It’s...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Amazon infamously has a leadership principle where they say “good leaders are right, a lot”. It’s unclear to me how useful it is about…
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Why does AI slop feel so bad to read? I don’t like reading obviously AI-generated content on Twitter. There’s a derogatory term for it: AI...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
I don’t like reading obviously AI-generated content on Twitter. There’s a derogatory term for it: AI “slop”, which means something like “AI…
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Playing politics is how senior engineers protect their team When I write about doing politically valuable work in big tech companies, I often get comments...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
When I write about doing politically valuable work in big tech companies, I often get comments accusing me of trying to get ahead at the…
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Using LLMs effectively isn't about prompting When people talk about using language models effectively they mainly talk about prompting: sharing...
a month ago
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a month ago
When people talk about using language models effectively they mainly talk about prompting: sharing great prompts, or lists of tips for…
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Glue work considered harmful “Glue work” is an concept Tanya Reilly came up with in 2019. The idea is that there’s a large amount...
4 months ago
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4 months ago
“Glue work” is an concept Tanya Reilly came up with in 2019. The idea is that there’s a large amount of unglamorous work that every team…
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To avoid being replaced by LLMs, do what they can't It’s a strange time to be a software engineer. Large language models are very good at writing code...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
It’s a strange time to be a software engineer. Large language models are very good at writing code and rapidly getting better. Multiple…
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Model Context Protocol explained as simply as possible Three months ago, Anthropic released “the Model Context Protocol”, or MCP. In the last few weeks,...
a month ago
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a month ago
Three months ago, Anthropic released “the Model Context Protocol”, or MCP. In the last few weeks, interest in it seems to have really picked…
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Talking to ChatGPT costs 5ml of water, not 500ml There’s a common claim on the internet that ChatGPT consumes half a litre of water for every 5-50...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
There’s a common claim on the internet that ChatGPT consumes half a litre of water for every 5-50 responses. Here are some randomly-chosen…
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Refactoring to understand and "vibe coding" In the last months, the practice of getting a LLM to build your entire program for you (via Cursor,...
a month ago
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a month ago
In the last months, the practice of getting a LLM to build your entire program for you (via Cursor, or Copilot, or just asking ChatGPT) has…
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Paths through the space of all possible solutions Some things you can’t do because they’re impossible. For instance, if you’re designing a distributed...
a month ago
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a month ago
Some things you can’t do because they’re impossible. For instance, if you’re designing a distributed system, you can’t violate the CAP…
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Lessons on thinking from large language models Large language models have gotten much better at thinking in the past few years. Billions of dollars...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Large language models have gotten much better at thinking in the past few years. Billions of dollars have been spent to study how they think…
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Great software design looks underwhelming Years ago I spent a lot of time reviewing coding challenges. The challenge itself was very...
a month ago
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a month ago
Years ago I spent a lot of time reviewing coding challenges. The challenge itself was very straightforward - building a CLI tool that hit an…
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The future of AI is Ruby on Rails Large language models are very good at generating and editing code. Right now, it’s probably the...
4 weeks ago
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4 weeks ago
Large language models are very good at generating and editing code. Right now, it’s probably the “killer app” of AI: the companies actually…
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Building your sense of what's important at a tech company One of the most important career skills in tech is learning to recognize what work actually matters....
a month ago
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a month ago
One of the most important career skills in tech is learning to recognize what work actually matters. Many engineers go through their careers…
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Weak managers In a previous post I made the point that having a weak manager - a manager without political clout -...
a month ago
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a month ago
In a previous post I made the point that having a weak manager - a manager without political clout - is really bad news if you’re an…
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Refactoring won't save you from a layoff With the recent flurry of US federal firings, many people are pointing and laughing at the...
a month ago
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a month ago
With the recent flurry of US federal firings, many people are pointing and laughing at the Trump-voting federal employees who are just now…
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What's next after the AI bubble bursts? In the mid-1800s, America went mad for rail. Over thirty thousand miles of rail were built in a five...
a month ago
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a month ago
In the mid-1800s, America went mad for rail. Over thirty thousand miles of rail were built in a five year period. This was all largely…
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Blockchain explained simply A blockchain is a distributed database. Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin are all different databases....
over a year ago
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over a year ago
A blockchain is a distributed database. Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin are all different databases. A blockchain node is a computer with an…
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Tactical work in the age of layoffs In the glory days of the 2010s, tech companies were very invested in their employees’ work-life...
3 weeks ago
20
3 weeks ago
In the glory days of the 2010s, tech companies were very invested in their employees’ work-life balance. Those glory days are over…
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How I know I'm working with a strong engineer There are many ways to judge engineers (lines of code written, how smart they sound, choice of IDE,...
a month ago
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a month ago
There are many ways to judge engineers (lines of code written, how smart they sound, choice of IDE, what projects they’ve worked on). I…
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Value over replacement in software engineering There are two ways of assessing how much value you’re providing as an engineer. The first way is to...
a month ago
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a month ago
There are two ways of assessing how much value you’re providing as an engineer. The first way is to total up all of the code you’ve shipped…
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Avoiding worry driven development Sofware dysfunction is more often motivated by anxiety, fear, worry and embarassment than it is by a...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Sofware dysfunction is more often motivated by anxiety, fear, worry and embarassment than it is by a lack of technical skill. Engineers…
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MCTS and LLMs: what's the big deal? Everyone on the internet is recently very excited about large language models and Monte Carlo tree...
10 months ago
18
10 months ago
Everyone on the internet is recently very excited about large language models and Monte Carlo tree search. Going back months, the “Q*” leak…
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Blockchain for beginners Introduction This is a guide for developers who kinda sorta know what blockchains are for (making...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Introduction This is a guide for developers who kinda sorta know what blockchains are for (making distributed crypto-currencies like Bitcoin…
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From hours to seconds: AI tools to detect animal calls If you’re currently spending time listening to long audio recordings of birdcalls or animal noises,...
11 months ago
17
11 months ago
If you’re currently spending time listening to long audio recordings of birdcalls or animal noises, it’s likely that the last four years of…
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Keep incidents boring The internet is full of exciting incident war stories. Tough engineering problems, solved under...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
The internet is full of exciting incident war stories. Tough engineering problems, solved under pressure by sleep-deprived developers. In an…
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Writing good technical explanations Software engineering is mainly learning. There is a great demand for technical explanations, and...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
Software engineering is mainly learning. There is a great demand for technical explanations, and many thousands of books, talks and blog…
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How LLMs work Over the last few weeks I’ve been playing around with the excellent llama2.c repository, which is...
a year ago
17
a year ago
Over the last few weeks I’ve been playing around with the excellent llama2.c repository, which is basically a simple one-file C…
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Advice for prompting reasoning models I’ve written about how prompting regular LLMs is not as important as people think. Reasoning models...
a month ago
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a month ago
I’ve written about how prompting regular LLMs is not as important as people think. Reasoning models are different. When you’re using…
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Acing the coding challenge How do you write a successful coding challenge? Unlike some nightmare whiteboard interview...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
How do you write a successful coding challenge? Unlike some nightmare whiteboard interview scenarios, typically a coding challenge is not a…
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Acing the design interview If you haven’t designed an actual system before, design interviews can be tough. Knowing how to work...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
If you haven’t designed an actual system before, design interviews can be tough. Knowing how to work with a particular web service or…
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Building multiplayer games with socket.io and HTML5 Canvas I’ve been building crappy hobby games on and off for my whole coding life. One of my very first apps...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
I’ve been building crappy hobby games on and off for my whole coding life. One of my very first apps was a Visual Basic game - I was in…
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Porting and hacking Llama2.c for fun and profit Over the last few weeks I’ve been playing around with the excellent llama2.c repository, which is...
a year ago
15
a year ago
Over the last few weeks I’ve been playing around with the excellent llama2.c repository, which is basically a simple one-file C…
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In defense of ruthless managers There are two kinds of engineering manager: empathetic and ruthless. I think ruthless managers are...
2 weeks ago
15
2 weeks ago
There are two kinds of engineering manager: empathetic and ruthless. I think ruthless managers are underrated for a few reasons. Empathetic…
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Engineers should state the obvious One surprising thing I’ve learned from writing this blog is that I should worry a lot less about...
4 weeks ago
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4 weeks ago
One surprising thing I’ve learned from writing this blog is that I should worry a lot less about saying things that seem obvious. A lot of…
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Learning incident response with problem sets It’s hard to teach good incident response. A good understanding of how the system runs in production...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
It’s hard to teach good incident response. A good understanding of how the system runs in production is essential, but how do you build that…
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The good times in tech are over For most of the last decade, being a software engineer has been a lot of fun. Every company offered...
a month ago
14
a month ago
For most of the last decade, being a software engineer has been a lot of fun. Every company offered lots of perks, layoffs and firings were…
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What kind of work I want This article is to help recruiters, hiring managers and myself have a better idea of the kind of...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
This article is to help recruiters, hiring managers and myself have a better idea of the kind of places I’d like to work. The short version…
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Wicked features Why is working at large tech companies so hard? It’s because a small subset of “wicked features”...
6 days ago
12
6 days ago
Why is working at large tech companies so hard? It’s because a small subset of “wicked features” dominate everything else. If you’re…
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Building LLM-driven agents If you want a large language model like GPT-3 to perform a task for you, the simplest way is to just...
a year ago
12
a year ago
If you want a large language model like GPT-3 to perform a task for you, the simplest way is to just ask it. Writing out a single prompt…
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Dangerous advice for software engineers I’m a big fan of “sharp tools”. These are tools that are powerful enough to be hugely helpful or...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
I’m a big fan of “sharp tools”. These are tools that are powerful enough to be hugely helpful or harmful, depending on how they’re used…
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How strong engineers break the rules and get away with it At every large tech company, some engineers get rewarded for visibly breaking the rules. This can be...
2 weeks ago
9
2 weeks ago
At every large tech company, some engineers get rewarded for visibly breaking the rules. This can be really frustrating for a certain kind…
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Software engineering under the spotlight Think of a tech company as a giant, dimly-lit factory. Work goes on throughout the factory as...
6 days ago
7
6 days ago
Think of a tech company as a giant, dimly-lit factory. Work goes on throughout the factory as components shuffle back and forth, and…
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Why is lmarena.ai dominated by slop? When LMSYS (aka LMArena, aka Chatbot Arena) first blew up, I thought it was the best way possible of...
4 days ago
5
4 days ago
When LMSYS (aka LMArena, aka Chatbot Arena) first blew up, I thought it was the best way possible of determining which LLM really was the…
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A practical guide to coding securely with LLMs Writing code with LLMs is fundamentally different from other ways of programming. LLMs are often...
3 days ago
5
3 days ago
Writing code with LLMs is fundamentally different from other ways of programming. LLMs are often non-deterministic and always unpredictable…
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Designing software that could possibly work Whenever anyone describes a piece of software to me, I think about how I would build it. Software...
4 days ago
4
4 days ago
Whenever anyone describes a piece of software to me, I think about how I would build it. Software engineers do this a lot, but many of them…