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Senior Developer Skills in the AI Age
How time-tested software engineering practices amplify the effectiveness of AI coding assistants.
Topics /
Career & Management
The most popular blog posts about career & management on Hacker News. 311 posts.
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Freelancing: How I found clients, part 1
tools, tactics, troubles along the way
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Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI
I just got off one of the most surreal video calls of my life - a live video call with a candidate who was interviewing to become an L3 software engineer at Kapwing, our online video editing startup. The interview started extremely well - the candidate seemed like a clear
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The Illustrated Guide to a PhD
There's a bit more below, but I also wrote a follow-up 5 years after the illustrated guide which may be of interest -- HOWTO: Get tenure .
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What makes you senior
The one skill that separates senior engineers from everyone else isn’t technical. It’s the ability to take ambiguous problems and make them concrete.Retry
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How good engineers write bad code at big companies
Every couple of years somebody notices that large tech companies sometimes produce surprisingly sloppy code. If you haven’t worked at a big company, it might be…
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Write to Escape Your Default Setting
Writing serves as a foundation for clarity in thought. It can help you engage more deeply with your ideas.
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I'm spoiled by Apple Silicon but still love Framework
A personal comparison of battery life between my MacBook M1 Pro and Framework 13
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You don't want to hire "the best engineers"
I think this might be the meanest thing I've ever written.
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The ideal candidate will be punched in the stomach
The description suggests that this is some kind of extended metaphor about work. It appears to be written in that _Choose Your Own Adventure_ style second-person voice, yet there are no choices to be found within. Against your better judgment, you follow the link.
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Code review can be better
Slightly unusual genre today: a negative result about our git-review tool for a different take on code review process, which we decided to shelve, at least for the time being.
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My approach to building large technical projects (2023)
Whether it's building a new project from scratch, implementing a big feature, or beginning a large refactor, it can be difficult to stay motivated and complete large technical projects. A method that works really well for me is to continuously see real results and to order my work based on that.
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We identified a North Korean hacker who tried to get a job
Cybersecurity isn’t just a priority for Kraken, it’s part of our origin story and embedded into our DNA.
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Confessions of a Software Developer: No More Self-Censorship
I haven't published since April because I've been afraid. What was I afraid of? In this post I detail every single thing I've avoided admitting on this blog.
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Malicious compliance by booking an available meeting room
In 2011, Larry Page became CEO of Google and tried to fix meetings. But his new policies were no match for Google Calendar pedants.
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How to Network as an Introvert
A calm guide to networking as an introvert—learn how posture, presence, and small signals can help you connect meaningfully without faking extroversion.
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Avoiding skill atrophy in the age of AI
How to use AI coding assistants without letting your hard-earned engineering skills wither away.
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Why I left my tech job to work on chronic pain
From chronically sore to chronically curious about the mind 🧠
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Flunking my Anthropic interview again
I didn't misclick any buttons. My best wasn't good enough. I'm not good enough.
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AI is a floor raiser, not a ceiling raiser
A reshaped learning curve
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Hitting OKRs vs. Doing Your Job
In Engineering, quarterly OKRs (Objectives & Key Results) can feel like a duplication of product planning. Basically, they say “Ship the Roadmap.” What new information are they comm…
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Microsoft Office migration from Source Depot to Git
Part 7 of my software journey, getting to know developer experience.
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How to be a leader when the vibes are off
...and the vibes are definitely off It feels different in tech right now. We’re coming off a long era where optimism carried the industry. Something has curdled. AI hype, return-to-office mandates, and continued layoffs have shifted the mood. Managers are quicker to fire, existential dread has replaced
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How to negotiate your salary package
The complete guide to salary negotiation for engineers and other professionals who think negotiating is morally questionable.
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Moving on from 18F
I had a wonderful job, until I didn’t. This is about what happened—and what is still happening.
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You’re not burnt out, you’re existentially starving
“Those who have a ‘Why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘How’.” ― Viktor Frankl quoting Friedrich Nietzsche, Man’s Search for Meaning Let me guess: Viktor Frankl calls this feeling the “existential vacuum” in his famous book Man’s Search for Meaning. Frankl was a psychologist who survived the Holocaust, and in this…
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How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer
Many software engineers are fatalistic about company politics. They believe that it’s pointless to get involved, because: Technical decisions are often made for…
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Advice for a friend who wants to start a blog
What’s odd about you is what’s interesting.