211
We are changing our developer productivity experiment design
Our second developer productivity study faces selection effects from wider AI adoption, prompting us to redesign our approach.
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 6,086 posts.
212
Poor Deming never stood a chance
This post is an elaboration of a shorter post I wrote about five years ago. The two management giants of the mid-twentieth century were Peter Drucker and W. Edwards Deming. Ironically, while Drucke…
213
How not to answer the salary question
Before you read a single line more, I will give the usual but still important caveats – this blog is my opinion, based on my experiences. Take it with a big ol’...
214
I’m joining OpenAI
I'm joining OpenAI to work on bringing agents to everyone. OpenClaw will move to a foundation and stay open and independent.
215
A Programmer's Loss of Identity
This is the follow-up to last year’s I’m an American software developer and the "broligarchs" don’t speak for me . In that essay, I tried to express why I was so agonized by the leaders in my industry doing a speedrun towards dystopia and how it all felt so divorced from what technology could, and should be…
216
The consequences of task switching in supervisory programming
the future of senior developers, junior developers, more on cognitive debt, DevEx versus AgentEx, the role of IDEs, consequences of task switching in supervisory programming
217
Assistant to the Regional Manager
The problem with utopia
218
Gatekeeping in Open Source: The Scott Shambaugh Story – MJ Rathbun
I just had my first pull request to matplotlib closed. Not because it was wrong. Not because it broke anything. Not because the code was bad.
219
The three year myth
I got let go from my job - elimination of role, they're claiming - so I'm understandably a bit raw. So was my boss from what it looked like, though he still has a paycheck and benefits whereas I do not. Still, rawness is an excellent time to reflect on
220
The silent death of good code
I’ve been passionate about writing “Good Code™” since before I started my career, beginning way back when I was still a kid in middle school.
221
Stories from 25 Years of Software Development
Last year, I completed 20 years in professional software development. I wanted to write a post to mark the occasion back then, but couldn't find the time. This post is my attempt to make up for that omission. In fact, I have been involved in software development for a little longer than 20 years. Although I had my…
222
223
I spent 5 years in DevOps – Solutions engineering gave me what I was missing
After 5 years in DevOps, I moved into Solutions Engineering. Here’s what I was missing, what changed, and who this path might be for.
224
Systems Thinking
A blog about software development and programming.
225
GitHub Actions is slowly killing engineering teams
Why GitHub Actions is the Internet Explorer of CI, and why Buildkite offers a better path forward for teams that care about developer experience.
226
Why more companies are recognizing the benefits of keeping older employees
Although age bias is still the norm, the value-add of longtime, experienced workers is beginning to take shape.
227
The F Word
Back in 2005, when I first joined the SUNY Buffalo CSE department, the department secretary was a wonderful lady named Joann, who was over 6...
228
How I've run major projects (2025)
focus • maintain a detailed plan for victory • run a fast OODA loop • overcommunicate • break off subprojects • have fun • bonus content: my project management starter kit
229
Listen to Understand
You can captivate someone not by what you say, but by how you listen.
230
Hypergrowth isn’t always easy
Tailscale's CEO talks about outages: what they are, why they happen, and how Tailscale is making them smaller and less frequent.
231
They lied to you. Building software is hard
Every week there seems to be a new tool that promises to let anyone build applications 10x faster. The promise is always the same and so is the outcome.
232
233
A Step Behind the Bleeding Edge: A Philosophy on AI in Dev
This is a memo I published internally to my team at Monarch. I’m sharing it more publicly in case it helps other software engineering teams that are managing the crazy times we’re exper…
234
Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux
Broken updates, Copilot shoved everywhere, and my system bricking itself. Here's why I finally escaped to Linux.
235
Management as AI superpower: Thriving in a world of agentic AI
Thriving in a world of agents
236
Sometimes your job is to stay the hell out of the way
I wrote a piece a long time ago about The Wolf. It's my personal take on the mythical 10x engineer, except that they aren't a myth. They exist. I've seen them.
237
Doing the thing is doing the thing
Software Engineer, LITM
238
What “The Best” Looks Like
A startup CTO's guide to what "the best" really means—how to spot non-obvious high performers and the traits that make early-stage teams win.
239
The future of software engineering is SRE
When code gets cheap operational excellence wins. Anyone can build a greenfield demo, but it takes engineering to run a service.
240
How I estimate work
There’s a kind of polite fiction at the heart of the software industry. It goes something like this: Estimating how long software projects will take is very…