Grow your engineering career
Your code gets you to senior. To go further you need more than code — interviews, negotiation, picking the right problems, and knowing what the business actually pays you for. These essays cover the career side of software engineering.
Career essays
3 articles from May 2026 · show all
Relentlessly focus on the outcomes
AI makes it easy to focus inwards and feel impressed with all the churn and motion and output you're producing. But your users don't care.
Engineering levels aren't about skill anymore
Traditional engineering levels were about skill progression. I think this has changed. Everyone now is a mini staff engineer.
Quick note on evals and putting AI in your resume
When candidates put AI on their resume, the key thing I try to find out is whether they used evals. How did you measure making improvements?