Mindset

The one thing every experienced engineer gets wrong

In the last few months every engineer I hired stumbled in exactly the same way: Project management. They learned quickly, but that first big project has become a rite of passage.

Just fix their PR

You know what's better than a code review comment? A fix.

"But if AI does it all, what's *my* job?"

On AI, mental load, and delegation

Just Read the Paper

Read more papers. You can learn the latest and greatest in your field in one chill afternoon.

Watch people work

We talk a lot about outcomes over outputs and how engineers are supposed to get us over the water, not blindly build a bridge because someone asked for a bridge. But how do you do that in practice?

Frustration Driven Development

Frustration is your greatest engineering asset. What do you do the 5th time someone asks for the same damn thing yet again?

Software engineer interviews for the age of AI

Maybe AI will replace engineers, I don't know. Self-driving cars were just around the corner for 50 years. Until then we've got shit to do and engineers to hire.

The best engineers just get shit done, sometimes with AI

The best engineers I know never talk about their AI setup. The worst engineers I know only talk about their AI setup.

Taming chaos is a learnable skill

How you approach software engineering makes it harder or easier to handle interruptions and other chaos. Writing a behavioral interview made me realize this is a learnable skill!

Put scope on your resume

Your resume titles don't matter. Just tell me what did you do.

Probably the realest thing I ever wrote

Users buy your service, not your code

You might enjoy this podcast episode. Sylvain and I talked about owning production in a world where AI writes the code.

GeLLMan amnesia

AI will automate every job except the ones I'm deeply familiar with

The 3 curves that make a scalable business

You want users and revenue to grow exponentially. Bugs per day to grow linearly. Support work to grow logarithmically. Your goal is to make this happen.