Stay ConnectedSoftware engineering at Big Tech and startups, from the inside. Deepdives with experienced engineers and tech professionals who share their hard-earned lessons, interesting stories and advice they have on building software.
Especially relevant for software engineers and engineering leaders: useful for those working in tech.
Copyright: © Gergely Orosz
Supported by Our Partners
• WorkOS — The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS.
• The Software Engineer’s Guidebook: Written by me (Gergely) – now out in audio form as well
• Augment Code — AI coding assistant that pro engineering teams love
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Not many people know that I have a brother: Balint Orosz. Balint is also in tech, but in many ways, is the opposite of me. While I prefer working on backend and business logic, he always thrived in designing and building UIs. While I opted to work at more established companies, he struck out on his own and started his startup, Distinction. And yet, our professional paths have crossed several times: at one point in time I accepted an offer to join Skyscanner as a Principal iOS Engineer – and as part of the negotiation, I added a clause to my contrac that I will not report directly or indirectly to the Head of Mobile: who happened to be my brother, thanks to Skyscanner acquiring his startup the same month that Skyscanner made an offer to hire me.
Today, Balint is the founder and CEO of Craft, a beloved text editor known for its user-friendly interface and sleek design – an app that Apple awarded the prestigious Mac App of the Year in 2021.
In our conversation, we explore how Balint approaches building opinionated software with an intense focus on user experience. We discuss the lessons he learned from his time building Distinction and working at Skyscanner that have shaped his approach to Craft and its development.
In this episode, we discuss:
• Balint’s first startup, Distinction, and his time working for Skyscanner after they acquired it
• A case for a balanced engineering culture with both backend and frontend priorities
• Why Balint doesn’t use iOS Auto Layout
• The impact of Craft being personal software on front-end and back-end development
• The balance between customization and engineering fear in frontend work
• The resurgence of local-first software and its role in modern computing
• The value of building a physical prototype
• How Balint uses GenAI to assist with complicated coding projects
• And much more!
—
Timestamps
(00:00) Intro
(02:13) What it’s like being a UX-focused founder
(09:00) Why it was hard to gain recognition at Skyscanner
(13:12) Takeaways from Skyscanner that Balint brought to Craft
(16:50) How frameworks work and why they aren’t always a good fit
(20:35) An explanation of iOS Auto Layout and its pros and cons
(23:13) Why Balint doesn’t use Auto Layout
(24:23) Why Craft has one code base
(27:46) Craft’s unique toolbar features and a behind the scenes peek at the code
(33:15) Why frontend engineers have fear around customization
(37:11) How Craft’s design system differs from most companies
(42:33) Behaviors and elements Craft uses rather than having a system for everything
(44:12) The back and frontend architecture in building personal software
(48:11) Shifting beliefs in personal computing
(50:15) The challenges faced with operating system updates
(50:48) The resurgence of local-first software
(52:31) The value of opinionated software for consumers
(55:30) Why Craft’s focus is on the user’s emotional experience
(56:50) The size of Craft’s engineering department and platform teams
(59:20) Why Craft moves faster with smaller teams
(1:01:26) Balint’s advice for frontend engineers looking to demonstrate value
(1:04:35) Balint’s breakthroughs using GenAI
(1:07:50) Why Balint still writes code
(1:09:44) Rapid fire round
—
The Pragmatic Engineer deepdives relevant for this episode:
• The AI hackathon at Craft Docs
• Engineering career paths at Big Tech and scaleups
• Thriving as a Founding Engineer: lessons from the trenches
• The past and future of modern backend practices
—
See the transcript and other references from the episode at https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/podcast
—
Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@pragmaticengineer.com.
Supported by Our Partners
• WorkOS — The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS.
• Graphite — The AI developer productivity platform.
• Formation — Level up your career and compensation with Formation.
—
In today’s episode of The Pragmatic Engineer, I am joined by a senior software engineer and cartoonist, Manu Cornet. Manu spent over a decade at Google, doing both backend and frontend development. He also spent a year and a half at Twitter before Elon Musk purchased it and rebranded it to X. But what Manu is most known for are his hilarious internet comics about the tech world, including his famous org chart comic from 2011 about Facebook, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft.
In today’s conversation, we explore many of his comics, discuss the meaning behind them, and talk about the following topics:
• The viral org chart comic that captured the structure of Big Tech companies
• Why Google is notorious for confusing product names
• The comic that ended up on every door at Google
• How Google’s 20% time fostered innovation—and what projects came from it
• How one of Manu’s comics predicted Google Stadia’s failure—and the reasons behind it
• The value of connecting to users directly
• Twitter’s climate before and after Elon Musk’s acquisition and the mass layoffs that followed
• And more!
—
Timestamps
(00:00) Intro
(02:01) Manu’s org structure comic
(07:10) Manu’s “Who Sues Who” comic
(09:15) Google vs. Amazon comic
(14:10) Confusing names at Google
(20:00) Different approaches to sharing information within companies
(22:20) The two ways of doing things at Google
(25:15) Manu’s code reviews comic
(27:45) The comic that was printed on every single door of Google
(30:55) An explanation of 20% at Google
(36:00) Gmail Labs and Google Stadia
(41:36) Manu’s time at Twitter and the threat of Elon Musk buying
(47:07) How Manu helped Gergely with a bug on Twitter
(49:05) Musk’s acquirement of Twitter and the resulting layoffs
(59:00) Manu’s comic about his disillusionment with Twitter and Google
(1:02:37) Rapid fire round
—
The Pragmatic Engineer deepdives relevant for this episode:
• Is Big Tech becoming more cutthroat?
—
See the transcript and other references from the episode at https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/podcast
—
Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@pragmaticengineer.com.
Supported by Our Partners
• WorkOS — The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS
• CodeRabbit — Cut code review time and bugs in half
• Augment Code — AI coding assistant that pro engineering teams love
—
How do you architect a live streaming system to deal with more load than it’s ever been done before? Today, we hear from an architect of such a system: Ashutosh Agrawal, formerly Chief Architect of JioCinema (and currently Staff Software Engineer at Google DeepMind.)
We take a deep dive into video streaming architecture, tackling the complexities of live streaming at scale (at tens of millions of parallel streams) and the challenges engineers face in delivering seamless experiences. We talk about the following topics:
• How large-scale live streaming architectures are designed
• Tradeoffs in optimizing performance
• Early warning signs of streaming failures and how to detect them
• Why capacity planning for streaming is SO difficult
• The technical hurdles of streaming in APAC regions
• Why Ashutosh hates APMs (Application Performance Management systems)
• Ashutosh’s advice for those looking to improve their systems design expertise
• And much more!
—
Timestamps
(00:00) Intro
(01:28) The world record-breaking live stream and how support works with live events
(05:57) An overview of streaming architecture
(21:48) The differences between internet streaming and traditional television.l
(22:26) How adaptive bitrate streaming works
(25:30) How throttling works on the mobile tower side
(27:46) Leading indicators of streaming problems and the data visualization needed
(31:03) How metrics are set
(33:38) Best practices for capacity planning
(35:50) Which resources are planned for in capacity planning
(37:10) How streaming services plan for future live events with vendors
(41:01) APAC specific challenges
(44:48) Horizontal scaling vs. vertical scaling
(46:10) Why auto-scaling doesn’t work
(47:30) Concurrency: the golden metric to scale against
(48:17) User journeys that cause problems
(49:59) Recommendations for learning more about video streaming
(51:11) How Ashutosh learned on the job
(55:21) Advice for engineers who would like to get better at systems
(1:00:10) Rapid fire round
—
The Pragmatic Engineer deepdives relevant for this episode:
• Software architect archetypes https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/software-architect-archetypes
• Engineering leadership skill set overlaps https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/engineering-leadership-skillset-overlaps
• Software architecture with Grady Booch https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/software-architecture-with-grady-booch
—
See the transcript and other references from the episode at https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/podcast
—
Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@pragmaticengineer.com.
Supported by Our Partners
• WorkOS — The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS
• CodeRabbit — Cut code review time and bugs in half
• Augment Code — AI coding assistant that pro engineering teams love
—
How do you architect a live streaming system to deal with more load than it’s ever been done before? Today, we hear from an architect of such a system: Ashutosh Agrawal, formerly Chief Architect of JioCinema (and currently Staff Software Engineer at Google DeepMind.)
We take a deep dive into video streaming architecture, tackling the complexities of live streaming at scale (at tens of millions of parallel streams) and the challenges engineers face in delivering seamless experiences. We talk about the following topics:
• How large-scale live streaming architectures are designed
• Tradeoffs in optimizing performance
• Early warning signs of streaming failures and how to detect them
• Why capacity planning for streaming is SO difficult
• The technical hurdles of streaming in APAC regions
• Why Ashutosh hates APMs (Application Performance Management systems)
• Ashutosh’s advice for those looking to improve their systems design expertise
• And much more!
—
Timestamps
(00:00) Intro
(01:28) The world record-breaking live stream and how support works with live events
(05:57) An overview of streaming architecture
(21:48) The differences between internet streaming and traditional television.l
(22:26) How adaptive bitrate streaming works
(25:30) How throttling works on the mobile tower side
(27:46) Leading indicators of streaming problems and the data visualization needed
(31:03) How metrics are set
(33:38) Best practices for capacity planning
(35:50) Which resources are planned for in capacity planning
(37:10) How streaming services plan for future live events with vendors
(41:01) APAC specific challenges
(44:48) Horizontal scaling vs. vertical scaling
(46:10) Why auto-scaling doesn’t work
(47:30) Concurrency: the golden metric to scale against
(48:17) User journeys that cause problems
(49:59) Recommendations for learning more about video streaming
(51:11) How Ashutosh learned on the job
(55:21) Advice for engineers who would like to get better at systems
(1:00:10) Rapid fire round
—
The Pragmatic Engineer deepdives relevant for this episode:
• Software architect archetypes https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/software-architect-archetypes
• Engineering leadership skill set overlaps https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/engineering-leadership-skillset-overlaps
• Software architecture with Grady Booch https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/software-architecture-with-grady-booch
—
See the transcript and other references from the episode at https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/podcast
—
Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@pragmaticengineer.com.
Supported by Our Partners
• Swarmia — The engineering intelligence platform for modern software organizations.
• Graphite — The AI developer productivity platform.
• Vanta — Automate compliance and simplify security with Vanta.
—
On today’s episode of The Pragmatic Engineer, I’m joined by Chip Huyen, a computer scientist, author of the freshly published O’Reilly book AI Engineering, and an expert in applied machine learning. Chip has worked as a researcher at Netflix, was a core developer at NVIDIA (building NeMo, NVIDIA’s GenAI framework), and co-founded Claypot AI. She also taught Machine Learning at Stanford University.
In this conversation, we dive into the evolving field of AI Engineering and explore key insights from Chip’s book, including:
• How AI Engineering differs from Machine Learning Engineering
• Why fine-tuning is usually not a tactic you’ll want (or need) to use
• The spectrum of solutions to customer support problems – some not even involving AI!
• The challenges of LLM evals (evaluations)
• Why project-based learning is valuable—but even better when paired with structured learning
• Exciting potential use cases for AI in education and entertainment
• And more!
—
Timestamps
(00:00) Intro
(01:31) A quick overview of AI Engineering
(05:00) How Chip ensured her book stays current amidst the rapid advancements in AI
(09:50) A definition of AI Engineering and how it differs from Machine Learning Engineering
(16:30) Simple first steps in building AI applications
(22:53) An explanation of BM25 (retrieval system)
(23:43) The problems associated with fine-tuning
(27:55) Simple customer support solutions for rolling out AI thoughtfully
(33:44) Chip’s thoughts on staying focused on the problem
(35:19) The challenge in evaluating AI systems
(38:18) Use cases in evaluating AI
(41:24) The importance of prioritizing users’ needs and experience
(46:24) Common mistakes made with Gen AI
(52:12) A case for systematic problem solving
(53:13) Project-based learning vs. structured learning
(58:32) Why AI is not the end of engineering
(1:03:11) How AI is helping education and the future use cases we might see
(1:07:13) Rapid fire round
—
The Pragmatic Engineer deepdives relevant for this episode:
• Applied AI Software Engineering: RAG https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/rag
• How do AI software engineering agents work? https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/ai-coding-agents
• AI Tooling for Software Engineers in 2024: Reality Check https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/ai-tooling-2024
• IDEs with GenAI features that Software Engineers love https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/ide-that-software-engineers-love
—
See the transcript and other references from the episode at https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/podcast
—
Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@pragmaticengineer.com.
Supported by Our Partners
• Formation — Level up your career and compensation with Formation.
• WorkOS — The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS
• Vanta — Automate compliance and simplify security with Vanta.
—
In today’s episode of The Pragmatic Engineer, I’m joined by Jonas Tyroller, one of the developers behind Thronefall, a minimalist indie strategy game that blends tower defense and kingdom-building, now available on Steam.
Jonas takes us through the journey of creating Thronefall from start to finish, offering insights into the world of indie game development. We explore:
• Why indie developers often skip traditional testing and how they find bugs
• The developer workflow using Unity, C# and Blender
• The two types of prototypes game developers build
• Why Jonas spent months building game prototypes in 1-2 days
• How Jonas uses ChatGPT to build games
• Jonas’s tips on making games that sell
• And more!
—
Timestamps
(00:00) Intro
(02:07) Building in Unity
(04:05) What the shader tool is used for
(08:44) How a Unity build is structured
(11:01) How game developers write and debug code
(16:21) Jonas’s Unity workflow
(18:13) Importing assets from Blender
(21:06) The size of Thronefall and how it can be so small
(24:04) Jonas’s thoughts on code review
(26:42) Why practices like code review and source control might not be relevant for all contexts
(30:40) How Jonas and Paul ensure the game is fun
(32:25) How Jonas and Paul used beta testing feedback to improve their game
(35:14) The mini-games in Thronefall and why they are so difficult
(38:14) The struggle to find the right level of difficulty for the game
(41:43) Porting to Nintendo Switch
(45:11) The prototypes Jonas and Paul made to get to Thronefall
(46:59) The challenge of finding something you want to build that will sell
(47:20) Jonas’s ideation process and how they figure out what to build
(49:35) How Thronefall evolved from a mini-game prototype
(51:50) How long you spend on prototyping
(52:30) A lesson in failing fast
(53:50) The gameplay prototype vs. the art prototype
(55:53) How Jonas and Paul distribute work
(57:35) Next steps after having the play prototype and art prototype
(59:36) How a launch on Steam works
(1:01:18) Why pathfinding was the most challenging part of building Thronefall
(1:08:40) Gen AI tools for building indie games
(1:09:50) How Jonas uses ChatGPT for editing code and as a translator
(1:13:25) The pros and cons of being an indie developer
(1:15:32) Jonas’s advice for software engineers looking to get into indie game development
(1:19:32) What to look for in a game design school
(1:22:46) How luck figures into success and Jonas’s tips for building a game that sells
(1:26:32) Rapid fire round
—
The Pragmatic Engineer deepdives relevant for this episode:
• Game development basics https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/game-development-basics
• Building a simple game using Unity https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/building-a-simple-game
—
See the transcript and other references from the episode at https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/podcast
—
Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@pragmaticengineer.com.
Supported by Our Partners
• Sonar — Trust your developers – verify your AI-generated code.
• Vanta —Automate compliance and simplify security with Vanta.
—
In today's episode of The Pragmatic Engineer, I'm joined by Charity Majors, a well-known observability expert – as well as someone with strong and grounded opinions. Charity is the co-author of "Observability Engineering" and brings extensive experience as an operations and database engineer and an engineering manager. She is the cofounder and CTO of observability scaleup Honeycomb.
Our conversation explores the ever-changing world of observability, covering these topics:
• What is observability? Charity’s take
• What is “Observability 2.0?”
• Why Charity is a fan of platform teams
• Why DevOps is an overloaded term: and probably no longer relevant
• What is cardinality? And why does it impact the cost of observability so much?
• How OpenTelemetry solves for vendor lock-in
• Why Honeycomb wrote its own database
• Why having good observability should be a prerequisite to adding AI code or using AI agents
• And more!
—
Timestamps
(00:00) Intro
(04:20) Charity’s inspiration for writing Observability Engineering
(08:20) An overview of Scuba at Facebook
(09:16) A software engineer’s definition of observability
(13:15) Observability basics
(15:10) The three pillars model
(17:09) Observability 2.0 and the shift to unified storage
(22:50) Who owns observability and the advantage of platform teams
(25:05) Why DevOps is becoming unnecessary
(27:01) The difficulty of observability
(29:01) Why observability is so expensive
(30:49) An explanation of cardinality and its impact on cost
(34:26) How to manage cost with tools that use structured data
(38:35) The common worry of vendor lock-in
(40:01) An explanation of OpenTelemetry
(43:45) What developers get wrong about observability
(45:40) A case for using SLOs and how they help you avoid micromanagement
(48:25) Why Honeycomb had to write their database
(51:56) Companies who have thrived despite ignoring conventional wisdom
(53:35) Observability and AI
(59:20) Vendors vs. open source
(1:00:45) What metrics are good for
(1:02:31) RUM (Real User Monitoring)
(1:03:40) The challenges of mobile observability
(1:05:51) When to implement observability at your startup
(1:07:49) Rapid fire round
—
The Pragmatic Engineer deepdives relevant for this episode:
• How Uber Built its Observability Platform https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/how-uber-built-its-observability-platform
• Building an Observability Startup https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/chronosphere
• How to debug large distributed systems https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/antithesis
• Shipping to production https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/shipping-to-production
—
See the transcript and other references from the episode at https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/podcast
—
Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@pragmaticengineer.com.
Supported by Our Partners
• Vanta — Automate compliance and simplify security with Vanta.
• WorkOS — The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS.
—
In today’s episode of The Pragmatic Engineer, I’m joined by Michael Novati, Co-founder and CTO of Formation. Before launching Formation, Michael spent eight years at Meta, where he was recognized as the top code committer company-wide for several years. The “Coding Machine” archetype was modeled after Michael at the company.
In our conversation, we talk about what it was like working at Meta and dive into its engineering culture. Michael shares his journey of quickly climbing the ranks from intern to principal-level and gives level-headed advice on leveling up your career. Plus, we discuss his work at Formation, where he helps engineers grow and land roles at top tech companies.
In this episode, we cover:
• An overview of software architect archetypes at Meta, including “the coding machine”
• Meta’s org structure, levels of engineers, and career trajectories
• The importance of maintaining a ‘brag list’ to showcase your achievements and impact
• Meta’s engineering culture and focus on building internal tools
• How beating Mark Zuckerberg in a game of Risk led to him accepting Michael’s friend request
• An inside look at Meta’s hiring process
• Tips for software engineers on the job market on how to do better in technical interviews
• And more!
—
Timestamps
(00:00) Intro
(01:45) An explanation of archetypes at Meta, including “the coding machine”
(09:14) The organizational structure and levels of software engineers at Meta
(10:05) Michael’s first project re-writing the org chart as an intern at Meta
(12:42) A brief overview of Michael’s work at Meta
(15:29) Meta’s engineering first culture and how Michael pushed for even more for ICs
(20:03) How tenure at Meta correlated with impact
(23:47) How Michael rose through the ranks at Meta so quickly
(29:30) The engineering culture at Meta, including how they value internal tools
(34:00) Companies that began at Meta or founded by former employees
(36:11) Facebook’s internal tool for scheduling meetings
(37:45) The product problems that came with scaling Facebook
(39:25) How Michael became Facebook friends with Mark Zuckerberg
(42:05) The “Zuck review” process
(44:30) How the French attacks crashed Michael’s photo inlay prototype
(51:15) How the photo inlay bug was fixed
(52:58) Meta’s hiring process
(1:03:40) Insights from Michael’s work at Formation
(1:09:08) Michael’s advice for experienced engineers currently searching for a job
(1:11:15) Rapid fire round
—
The Pragmatic Engineer deepdives relevant for this episode:
• Inside Meta’s engineering culture: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/facebook
• Stacked diffs (and why you should know about them) https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/stacked-diffs
• Engineering career paths at Big Tech and scaleups: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/engineering-career-paths
• Inside the story of how Meta built the Threads app: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/building-the-threads-app
—
See the transcript and other references from the episode at https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/podcast
—
Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@pragmaticengineer.com.
Supported by Our Partners
• DX — DX is an engineering intelligence platform designed by leading researchers.
• Vanta — Automate compliance and simplify security with Vanta.
—
In today’s episode of The Pragmatic Engineer, I catch up with one of the best tech recruiters I’ve had the opportunity to work with: Blake Stockman, a former colleague of mine from Uber. Blake built a strong reputation in the recruiting world, working at tech giants like Google, Meta, and Uber. He also spent time with Y Combinator and founded his agency, where he helped both large tech companies and early-stage startups find and secure top talent. A few months ago, Blake did a career pivot: he is now studying to become a lawyer. I pounced on this perfect opportunity to have him share all that he’s seen behind-the-scenes in tech recruitment: sharing his observations unfiltered.
In our conversation, Blake shares recruitment insights from his time at Facebook, Google, and Uber and his experience running his own tech recruitment agency. We discuss topics such as:
• A step-by-step breakdown of hiring processes at Big Tech and startups• How to get the most out of your tech recruiter, as a candidate• Best practices for hiring managers to work with their recruiter• Why you shouldn’t disclose salary expectations upfront, plus tips for negotiating• Where to find the best startup opportunities and how to evaluate them—including understanding startup compensation• And much more!
—
Timestamps
(00:00) Intro
(01:40) Tips for working with recruiters
(06:11) Why hiring managers should have more conversations with recruiters
(09:48) A behind-the-scenes look at the hiring process at big tech companies
(13:38) How hiring worked at Uber when Gergely and Blake were there
(16:46) An explanation of calibration in the recruitment process
(18:11) A case for partnering with recruitment
(20:49) The different approaches to recruitment Blake experienced at different organizations
(25:30) How hiring decisions are made
(31:34) The differences between hiring at startups vs. large, established companies
(33:21) Reasons desperate decisions are made and problems that may arise
(36:30) The problem of hiring solely to fill a seat
(38:55) The process of the closing call
(40:24) The importance of understanding equity
(43:27) Tips for negotiating
(48:38) How to find the best startup opportunities, and how to evaluate if it’s a good fit
(53:58) What to include on your LinkedIn profile
(55:48) A story from Uber and why you should remember to thank your recruiter
(1:00:09) Rapid fire round
—
The Pragmatic Engineer deepdives relevant for this episode:
• How GenAI is reshaping tech hiring https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/how-genai-changes-tech-hiring
• Hiring software engineers https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/hiring-software-engineers
• Hiring an Engineering Manager https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/hiring-engineering-managers
• Hiring Junior Software Engineers https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/hiring-junior-engineers
—
See the transcript and other references from the episode at https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/podcast
—
Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@pragmaticengineer.com.
Supported by Our Partner
DX → DX is an engineering intelligence platform designed by leading researchers
—
In today’s episode of The Pragmatic Engineer, I’m joined by Sean Goedecke, Staff Software Engineer at GitHub. Sean is widely known for his viral blog post, “How I ship projects at big tech companies.” In our conversation, he shares how to successfully deliver projects in large tech companies.
Drawing from his experiences at GitHub and Zendesk, Sean reflects on key lessons learned, and we discuss the following topics:
• Why shipping cannot exclude keeping management happy
• How to work on stuff the company actually values
• Why you should take on extra responsibility to get projects done
• Why technical skills are still more important than soft skills
• Soft skills you should learn: including learning the “management lingo”
• First-hand remote work learnings: advantages, disadvantages, and how to thrive in this setup
• … and much more!
—
Timestamps
(00:00) Intro
(01:50) An explanation of shipping
(05:35) Reasons management may choose to ship something customers don’t love
(09:20) A humbling learning from Sean’s time at Zendesk
(13:27) The importance of learning which rules need to be broken for good business outcomes
(15:28) Common obstacles to shipping
(18:13) DRI: Directly responsible individual
(23:06) The value of strong technical skills and why moving fast is imperative
(28:44) How to leverage your technical skills the right way
(32:16) Advice on earning the trust of leadership
(36:10) A time Gergely shipped a product for a political reason
(38:30) What GenAI helps software engineers do more easily
(41:08) Sean’s thoughts on GenAI making engineers more ambitious
(43:20) The difficulty of building AI tools
(46:10) Advantages of working remotely and strategies for making it work
(52:34) Who is best suited to remote work
(54:48) How the pandemic provided a remote work trial for Sean
(56:45) Rapid fire round
—
The Pragmatic Engineer deepdives relevant for this episode:
• Software Engineers Leading Projects https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/engineers-leading-projects
• Shipping to production https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/shipping-to-production
• Paying down tech debt https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/paying-down-tech-debt
—
See the transcript and other references from the episode at https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/podcast
—
Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@pragmaticengineer.com.
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