Welcome Email 2/3: Our Most Popular Issue
— Kent Beck
tl;dr: “From years of watching master programmers, I have observed certain common patterns in their workflows. From years of coaching skilled journeyman programmers, I have observed the absence of those patterns. I have seen what a difference introducing the patterns can make. Here are ways effective programmers get the most out of their precious 3e9 seconds on the planet. The theme here is scaling your brain.”
Leadership CareerAdvice
— Steve Huynh
tl;dr: “I’m going to teach you three techniques that changed how I communicate at work. You can use them individually, but for the best results, you want to use all three together. And I’m going to use each technique to explain itself, so you can see them working in real time.”
CareerAdvice
— Can Duruk
tl;dr: “Here’s what works for me: a simple, repeatable structure that I use every single week. It’s based on the popular People, Product, Process format. I’m going to give you the exact script I use, the Notion setup, and some ideas for how to handle each section.”
Leadership Management
— Addy Osmani
tl;dr: “These lessons are what I wish I’d known earlier. Some would have saved me months of frustration. Others took years to fully understand. None of them are about specific technologies - those change too fast to matter. They’re about the patterns that keep showing up, project after project, team after team.”
CareerAdvice
“Celebrate endings — for they precede new beginnings.”
— Sean Goedecke
tl;dr: “It’s harder to be a software engineer now than at any time in the last decade. The good times in tech are over, at least for now. It’s not just a tough job market, but a tough environment for already-employed software engineers. What can we do about it?”
CareerAdvice
— Boris Tane
tl;dr: “I’ve been using Claude Code as my primary development tool for approx 9 months, and the workflow I’ve settled into is radically different from what most people do with AI coding tools. Most developers type a prompt, sometimes use plan mode, fix the errors, repeat.“
BestPractices
— Dr Milan Milanović
tl;dr: “In this newsletter issue, I want to share five books that influenced my journey from engineer to CTO the most. Each of these books contributed beyond just technical knowledge; they challenged my assumptions, introduced new mental models, and ultimately changed how I work and lead teams.”
Books
— Joy Arulraj
tl;dr: “This paper proposes a preliminary taxonomy of system design principles distilled from several domains in computer systems. The goal is a shared, concise vocabulary that helps students, researchers, and practitioners reason about structure and trade-offs, compare designs across domains, and communicate choices more clearly.”
System Design
Null Pointer
Monitored Autonomy
Hand-drawn by Manu.
Notable Links
Art of CL: Master the command line, in one page.
Claude Skills:66 skills & 9 workflows.
DevToys: A Swiss Army knife for developers.
Minimalist CV: Print-friendly, minimalist CV page.
Tech Interview Handbook: Curated interview preparation materials.
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