Tag: #engineering-culture
Writing on GPUs, LLMs, MLOps, Kubernetes — and mindset · 17 posts
What Stays Expensive — Four Things That Gain Value When Generation Gets Cheap
Answer the question "what should engineers prepare for" with a list of tools and the answer is stale in two years. This piece proposes a different axis: the skills that hold value are the ones that stay expensive to veri
2026-08-15 · 6 min read #career#skills#ai#craft#engineering-cultureThe Claim That Understanding Is the Bottleneck, and Its Circularity — When the Explainer Is the Thing Under Review
An essay on what remains when agents produce code faster than people can read it drew a long discussion. The author proposes moving the goal from understanding-to-verify to understanding-to-participate, and offers three
2026-08-14 · 7 min read #engineering-culture#code-review#developer-experience#documentation#ai-assisted-developmentWhen the Artifact Gets Cheap, Where Does Assessment Move — Why Denmark Chose the Oral Defense
The Danish Ministry of Education has issued an immediate package that makes an oral defense mandatory for exam assignments written at home. When the cost of writing approaches zero, the submission alone tells you nothing
2026-08-09 · 8 min read #assessment#hiring#code-review#education#engineering-cultureWhy the Claim That Code Was Never the Hard Part Makes People So Angry
An essay that reached the top of Hacker News in August 2026 argues that saying code was never the hard part is an insult to every programmer. This post agrees with the rebuttal but locates the cause somewhere else. That
2026-08-09 · 8 min read #career#craft#ai#engineering-culture#skillsHow Successful Companies Go Blind — and What It Looks Like in Engineering
Ian Reppel’s essay argues that successful companies suffer from what he calls "competence blindness" — like the Mexican cavefish that suppresses its own eyes, they stop expressing careful engineering because the environm
2026-07-11 · 8 min read #engineering-culture#organizations#legacy#metrics#leadershipThe Rise of AI Code Review Tools — What to Delegate and What Humans Should Still See
AI code review tools are spreading fast. We separate the defects AI catches well from the areas humans must still own, and cover CI integration, an adoption checklist, and a critical perspective.
2026-06-25 · 16 min read #devops#code-review#ai-tools#developer-experience#ci-cdDeliberate Practice — Experience Alone Will Not Make You Better
Why ten years on the job can leave your skill stuck, and the principles of deliberate practice that break the plateau. Covers concrete methods for developers — reading code, reimplementing, code katas, postmortems — plus
2026-06-16 · 19 min read #career#deliberate-practice#growth#learning#engineering-cultureIn the End, People Do the Work — What It Means to Respect People on a Software Team
A look at how things that appear to be technical problems are often really problems of people and communication, with respect expressed as concrete behavior rather than abstraction. It covers conduct in code review and d
2026-06-16 · 22 min read #respect#teamwork#engineering-culture#communication#collaborationThe 30x AI Engineer Is Defined by Taste, Not Speed
An introduction to and expansion of the widely discussed Substack essay How to be a 30x AI engineer with taste. As AI commoditizes code production, the differentiator becomes evaluative judgment — deciding what to build
2026-06-12 · 19 min read #ai#career#engineering-culture#productivity#code-reviewArtisans and Builders — Where Developers Should Stand When LLMs Erode Their Careers
Built around two essays — Artisans and builders from the Stack Overflow blog and the HN-viral LLMs are eroding my software engineering career — this post redefines developer identity in the AI era. It covers the democrat
2026-06-12 · 22 min read #career#ai#engineering-culture#llm#senior-engineerHow to Review AI-Written Code — Redesigning Code Review
The surge of AI-generated code has made code review the biggest bottleneck in the development pipeline. This post covers how defect patterns differ between human and AI code, redesigning review strategy around spec compa
2026-06-12 · 18 min read #ai#code-review#ai-agent#engineering-culture#open-sourceSurvival Japanese for Developers at Japanese Tech Companies 2026 — Keigo, Code Review, Meetings, Incidents, 1on1 Vocabulary Deep Dive
A 2026 field guide for non-Japanese engineers joining Mercari, LINE, ZOZO, CyberAgent, PayPay, Rakuten, DeNA, or any Japanese subsidiary — where foreign engineer ratios now cross 30%. 24 H2 sections covering the keigo po
2026-05-16 · 30 min read #japanese-for-developers#tech-japanese#keigo#business-japanese#code-reviewEpistemology in Software Engineering: Knowledge and Certainty
An exploration of epistemological concepts applied to software engineering, covering knowledge validation, uncertainty management, and evidence-based decision making.
2026-03-15 · 27 min read #culture#epistemology#philosophy#knowledge#decision-makingEffective One-on-One Meeting Guide
A practical guide to running effective one-on-one meetings from both the manager and the IC side, covering preparation, question frameworks, feedback models, and remote-first adaptations.
2026-03-15 · 23 min read #culture#one-on-one#meeting#management#soft-skillsPragmatism and Engineering Decision Framework
A framework for pragmatic engineering decision-making, covering trade-off analysis, decision records, and practical approaches to technical choices.
2026-03-14 · 43 min read #pragmatism#decision-making#philosophy#engineering-culture#cultureEffective Code Review Culture and Best Practices
A guide to building an effective code review culture with best practices for constructive feedback, review workflows, and team collaboration.
2026-03-14 · 32 min read #code-review#engineering-culture#collaboration#soft-skills#cultureStaff Engineer Technical Leadership and Influence Expansion Strategy
A comprehensive guide covering Staff/Principal Engineer role definitions, technical decision-making (RFC/ADR), influence expansion, mentoring, tech debt management, and engineering culture building for senior+ engineer c
2026-03-14 · 12 min read #ai-platform#staff-engineer#technical-leadership#career-growth#engineering-culture