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The importance of character in software engineering Software engineers care a lot about being smart and knowledgeable. Conversations about how to become...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Software engineers care a lot about being smart and knowledgeable. Conversations about how to become a better software engineer often center around learning more facts: programming language syntax, design patterns, details of how particular technologies work, and so on. It’s also...
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How projects fail at large tech companies How do projects fail at large tech companies? As I’ve said many times, failure means executives...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
How do projects fail at large tech companies? As I’ve said many times, failure means executives aren’t happy with how the project turned out. At healthy companies, that typically means that a sensible engineer wouldn’t be happy either, because the project didn’t work or users...
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Getting things "done" in large tech companies What does it mean to get things done? In the abstract, you can complete a mathematical proof or a...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
What does it mean to get things done? In the abstract, you can complete a mathematical proof or a problem set, but the real world is much fuzzier. Suppose I plant a tree in my backyard. Once the sapling is in the ground, is that done? Not really. There’s always more work to do:...
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I don't care about your magic prompts There’s a brand of tech influencer now that’s all about sharing the perfect prompt for any...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
There’s a brand of tech influencer now that’s all about sharing the perfect prompt for any situation. The tweets in question typically read something like “this prompt will make you superhuman”, or “this prompt will be a 20k growth consultant in your pocket”. There’s a kernel of...
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The valley of engineering despair I have delivered a lot of successful engineering projects. When I start on a project, I’m now very...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
I have delivered a lot of successful engineering projects. When I start on a project, I’m now very (perhaps unreasonably) confident that I will ship it successfully. Even so, in every single one of these projects there is a period - perhaps a day, or even a week - where it feels...
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Sycophancy is the first LLM "dark pattern" People have been making fun of OpenAI models for being overly sycophantic for months now. I even...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
People have been making fun of OpenAI models for being overly sycophantic for months now. I even wrote a post advising users to pretend that their work was written by someone else, to counteract the model’s natural desire to shower praise on the user. With the latest GPT-4o...
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Debugging, emotional resilience, and mental models Being good at debugging is more useful than being good at writing code - you only write a piece of...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Being good at debugging is more useful than being good at writing code - you only write a piece of code once, but you may end up debugging it hundreds of times. As programmers use more AI-written code, debugging may end up being the only remaining programming skill. But for some...
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The OpenAI house style is exhausting I was reading this Reddit post when I noticed a pattern: a few times now I’ve seen a negative Reddit...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
I was reading this Reddit post when I noticed a pattern: a few times now I’ve seen a negative Reddit comment that to me just screamed “written by ChatGPT”. Here it is, in full: Yes, you’re the asshole. And not because you owe them money — let’s kill that fantasy right now — but...
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Senior engineers should make side bets When you’re a junior, you should work on what you’re given. There are two reasons for this. First,...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
When you’re a junior, you should work on what you’re given. There are two reasons for this. First, your work needs to be supervised and checked by a more experienced engineer, and if you go and work on random things it makes it hard for that engineer to stay across what you’re...
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Anarchy in the East India Company I recently read (well, listened to the audiobook of) The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
I recently read (well, listened to the audiobook of) The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company by William Dalrymple. Before reading The Anarchy, my vague pop-culture understanding of the East India company went something like this: England, as a strong colonial...
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When you should lie to the language model Here’s an unreasonably effective trick for working with AIs: always pretend that your work was...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Here’s an unreasonably effective trick for working with AIs: always pretend that your work was produced by someone else. The problem is that…
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Is using AI wrong? A review of six popular anti-AI arguments Some people really, really don’t like AI. Broadly speaking, being anti-AI is a popular left-wing...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Some people really, really don’t like AI. Broadly speaking, being anti-AI is a popular left-wing position: AI is cringe, it’s plagiarism, it…
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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...
2 months ago
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2 months 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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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...
3 months ago
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3 months 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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Designing software that could possibly work Whenever anyone describes a piece of software to me, I think about how I would build it. Software...
3 months ago
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3 months 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…
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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...
3 months ago
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3 months 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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Wicked features Why is working at large tech companies so hard? It’s because a small subset of “wicked features”...
3 months ago
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3 months 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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In defense of ruthless managers There are two kinds of engineering manager: empathetic and ruthless. I think ruthless managers are...
3 months ago
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3 months 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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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...
3 months ago
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3 months 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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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...
3 months ago
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3 months 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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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 months ago
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3 months 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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Engineers should state the obvious One surprising thing I’ve learned from writing this blog is that I should worry a lot less about...
3 months ago
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3 months 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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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...
3 months ago
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3 months 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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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...
3 months ago
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3 months 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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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,...
4 months ago
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4 months 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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Model Context Protocol explained as simply as possible Three months ago, Anthropic released “the Model Context Protocol”, or MCP. In the last few weeks,...
4 months ago
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4 months 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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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...
4 months ago
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4 months 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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Great software design looks underwhelming Years ago I spent a lot of time reviewing coding challenges. The challenge itself was very...
4 months ago
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4 months 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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Refactoring won't save you from a layoff With the recent flurry of US federal firings, many people are pointing and laughing at the...
4 months ago
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4 months 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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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...
4 months ago
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4 months 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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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....
4 months ago
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4 months 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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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...
4 months ago
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4 months 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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Advice for prompting reasoning models I’ve written about how prompting regular LLMs is not as important as people think. Reasoning models...
4 months ago
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4 months 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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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,...
4 months ago
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4 months 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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Weak managers In a previous post I made the point that having a weak manager - a manager without political clout -...
4 months ago
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4 months 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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Using LLMs effectively isn't about prompting When people talk about using language models effectively they mainly talk about prompting: sharing...
4 months ago
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4 months 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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Lessons on thinking from large language models Large language models have gotten much better at thinking in the past few years. Billions of dollars...
4 months ago
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4 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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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...
4 months ago
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4 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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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...
5 months ago
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5 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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Good engineers are right, a lot Amazon infamously has a leadership principle where they say “good leaders are right, a lot”. It’s...
5 months ago
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5 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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How I use LLMs as a staff engineer Software engineers are deeply split on the subject of large language models. Many believe they’re...
5 months ago
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5 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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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...
5 months ago
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5 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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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...
5 months ago
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5 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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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...
5 months ago
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5 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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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...
5 months ago
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5 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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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)...
5 months ago
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5 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...
5 months ago
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5 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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Why are big tech companies so slow? Big tech companies spend a lot of time and money building things that a single, motivated engineer...
5 months ago
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5 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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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....
5 months ago
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5 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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Thinking clearly about software You can go a long way as a software engineer without ever managing to think clearly. The feedback...
5 months ago
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5 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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Giving pushback to leadership Saying no to leadership is sometimes necessary when you’re at the helm of a project. Whether they’re...
5 months ago
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5 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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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...
6 months ago
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6 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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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....
6 months ago
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6 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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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...
6 months ago
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6 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 makes strong engineers strong? As I’ve written about before, what defines a strong engineer is the ability to do tasks that weaker...
6 months ago
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6 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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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...
6 months ago
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6 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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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...
6 months ago
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6 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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Mistakes engineers make in large established codebases Working in large established codebases is one of the hardest things to learn as a software engineer....
6 months ago
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6 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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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...
6 months ago
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6 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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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...
6 months ago
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6 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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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...
6 months ago
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6 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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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...
6 months ago
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6 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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Grifters, believers, grinders, and coasters Why do engineers get mad at each other so often? I think a lot of programmer arguments bottom out...
7 months ago
40
7 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...
7 months ago
40
7 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 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...
8 months ago
43
8 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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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...
8 months ago
43
8 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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MCTS and LLMs: what's the big deal? Everyone on the internet is recently very excited about large language models and Monte Carlo tree...
a year ago
25
a year 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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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,...
a year ago
24
a year 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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How LLMs work Over the last few weeks I’ve been playing around with the excellent llama2.c repository, which is...
a year ago
25
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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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
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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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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
22
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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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
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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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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
20
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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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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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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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
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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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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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Writing good technical explanations Software engineering is mainly learning. There is a great demand for technical explanations, and...
over a year ago
23
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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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
24
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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Blockchain for beginners Introduction This is a guide for developers who kinda sorta know what blockchains are for (making...
over a year ago
24
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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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
23
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…