Writing on developer culture, careers, productivity, and the human side of building software.
The standard developer hiring process is broken in a specific and measurable way: we evaluate candidates based on signals that poorly predict job performance …
TL;DR: Blind interviews remove bias from the initial screening. When evaluators see only the work — not the …
Google’s multi-year wave of layoffs, which began in January 2023 with 12,000 positions eliminated, continued to send shockwaves through the tech industry. …
TL;DR: Google laying off engineers from Flutter, Dart, and Python teams raises questions about corporate …
When a former Microsoft developer publicly states that Windows 11’s performance is “comically bad” — even on high-end hardware — it is worth …
TL;DR: Windows 11 performance issues are not bugs — they are the accumulated result of architectural …
Every few years, someone predicts the end of programming jobs. Visual programming was going to eliminate coders. Low-code platforms were going to eliminate …
TL;DR: AI will automate much of the mechanical work of programming — boilerplate, CRUD operations, standard …
In 1843, Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace — known today as Ada Lovelace — published a set of notes on Charles Babbage’s proposed Analytical Engine. …
TL;DR: Ada Lovelace's 1843 algorithm for computing Bernoulli numbers on Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine …
AI coding assistants — GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, Amazon CodeWhisperer, and their growing list of competitors — have fundamentally changed how developers write …
TL;DR: AI coding assistants increase output speed but can decrease code quality. The risk is not that AI …
The first two years of a software development career are uniquely difficult. Not because the technical work is the hardest — it gets more complex later — but …
TL;DR: Junior developers face a unique combination of challenges: imposter syndrome, knowledge overload, …
Burnout is not tiredness. Tiredness goes away with rest. Burnout is a state of chronic emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal …
TL;DR: Burnout in software engineering is caused by chronic mismatches between the developer and their work …
You shipped the feature. The tests pass. The code review was approved. CI is green. The deployment went smooth. And yet — there is a knot in your stomach. You …
TL;DR: Some developers live in a constant state of anxiety about their code, convinced that bugs lurk …
Multiple surveys — from LendingClub, Bankrate, the Federal Reserve, and others — converge on a striking figure: approximately 60% of American adults are living …
TL;DR: Six in ten Americans cannot cover a $1,000 emergency without borrowing. This is not just a …
Stack Overflow’s annual Developer Survey — one of the largest surveys of software professionals, with tens of thousands of respondents — has tracked a …
TL;DR: Developer job satisfaction is declining despite high compensation. The drivers are organizational — …
Pew Research Center reported that nearly half of Americans aged 18 to 29 are living with one or both parents. This is not a pandemic blip — it is the …
TL;DR: Nearly 50% of young adults in the US live with their parents. The driving factors are economic — …
The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) reported that homelessness in America increased by 12% in a single year, reaching the highest level …
TL;DR: US homelessness reached its highest recorded level after a 12% annual increase. The causes are …
There is a persistent misconception that software development is primarily about writing code. That the developer’s job is to receive a specification and …
TL;DR: Developers are not human compilers. The job is problem-solving, system design, and navigating …
Security researchers identified a malware family that could maintain persistent access to Google accounts even after the victim changed their password. The …
TL;DR: The malware exploits Google's OAuth token refresh mechanism to regenerate valid session tokens even …
There is a persistent belief in the software industry that great developers are rare. Companies fight over the same pool of experienced engineers, salaries …
TL;DR: The bottleneck in software talent is not supply — it is discovery. Potential great developers are …
You already know this. Intellectually, you have known it since childhood. Somebody explained it to you, or you figured it out on your own, and the information …
TL;DR: Awareness of death is not morbid — it is clarifying. It strips away the things that do not matter …
“I just need a programmer.” It is one of the most common things non-technical founders, small business owners, and project sponsors say. It is …
TL;DR: If you have an idea and 'just need a programmer,' you probably need a product manager, a designer, a …
Programming requires sustained concentration in a way that most knowledge work does not. The mental model a developer holds in their head while working on a …
TL;DR: Interruptions cost programmers 15–25 minutes of recovery time each. Open offices increase this …
Researchers at the University of Science and Technology of China published results of an AI-driven robotic chemist that could analyze Martian soil samples and …
TL;DR: The AI system used machine learning to analyze Martian meteorite samples and identify catalyst …
The transition from programmer to engineering manager is one of the most common career moves in tech and one of the least understood. It is presented as a …
TL;DR: The transition from programmer to manager is a career change, not a promotion. Different skills, …
Programming is cognitive work at its most demanding. It requires holding complex mental models in working memory, reasoning about abstract systems, making …
TL;DR: Chronic stress impairs working memory, abstract reasoning, and decision-making — the exact cognitive …
You watch the news to be informed. You check headlines to understand what is happening in the world. You scroll through updates because knowing seems better …
TL;DR: News consumption creates an illusion of being informed while producing anxiety, learned …
I want to talk about the time I burned out badly enough that I seriously considered leaving software development entirely. Not in a dramatic “I quit on …
TL;DR: Burnout did not arrive suddenly. It accumulated over months of unsustainable pace, blurred …
Signal — the encrypted messaging app that has become the default recommendation for anyone who cares about privacy — announced that its annual operating costs …
TL;DR: Running a free encrypted messaging service for hundreds of millions of users costs real money. …
Reports emerged that a Chinese state-linked hacking group had infiltrated the network of NXP Semiconductors, one of the world’s largest chipmakers based …
TL;DR: State-sponsored hackers reportedly accessed NXP Semiconductors' network over two years, targeting …
You are reading something online. It is well-written, coherent, and addresses your question. You find it helpful. Then you wonder: was this written by a human …
TL;DR: The distinction between human and AI communication is becoming harder to detect. What matters is not …
“Equal opportunity, not equal outcomes” is the baseline position in most political discussions about fairness. The idea is intuitive: give everyone …
TL;DR: Equality of opportunity assumes a level starting point that does not exist. Without addressing the …
The pattern is familiar: an executive, a consultant, or a think tank declares that working from home is damaging productivity, collaboration, and innovation. …
TL;DR: The evidence on remote work productivity is mixed but generally positive. Most 'return to office' …
The chest tightness. The racing thoughts. The feeling that something is wrong even when you cannot identify what. The urge to flee, fight, or freeze. Anxiety …
TL;DR: Anxiety evolved as a threat-detection system. In modern life, it frequently misfires — detecting …
The question sounds nihilistic, but it is not. It is practical. If happiness is the goal, what is the most effective way to pursue it? The answer, supported by …
TL;DR: Directly pursuing happiness tends to backfire. The research shows that meaning, engagement, and …
You have been staring at a bug for two hours. The stack trace makes no sense. You have added print statements, stepped through the debugger, drawn diagrams on a …
TL;DR: The brain's default mode network solves problems in the background when you stop actively thinking …
Microsoft contributed $1 million to the Rust Foundation, joining Google, Amazon, Meta, and other major technology companies in funding the development of the …
TL;DR: Microsoft invested $1M in the Rust Foundation, adding to similar investments from Google, Amazon, …
Women make up roughly 50% of the population and roughly 25% of software developers. This gap is not because women are less capable of programming — the evidence …
TL;DR: Gender diversity in programming improves team performance, product quality, and the breadth of …
“How are you?” “Fine.” The exchange happens dozens of times a day, and almost none of them involve honesty. The script is clear: you say …
TL;DR: Insisting you are fine when you are not delays recovery. Acknowledging difficulty is the first step …
Every year, Stack Overflow’s developer survey includes questions about work hours, satisfaction, and workload. Every year, the numbers tell the same …
TL;DR: Developer workload has increased steadily while team sizes and timelines have not kept pace. The …
Harvard Business School’s employment report showed a decline in the percentage of MBA graduates receiving job offers before graduation. The numbers — …
TL;DR: Even Harvard MBAs faced a tighter job market as companies pulled back on hiring. If the most …
John Gottman’s research at the University of Washington studied thousands of couples over decades and identified, with over 90% accuracy, which couples …
TL;DR: Successful relationships are not about compatibility or chemistry. They are about specific, …
The first time you do something hard — write code, give a speech, cook a complex meal, have a difficult conversation — it consumes your entire cognitive …
TL;DR: Repeated practice builds myelin around neural pathways, making the same actions require less …
The pattern is recognizable: you leave a bad relationship, vow to choose differently next time, and then find yourself in a relationship with someone who has …
TL;DR: You attract what you tolerate and seek what is familiar. Changing the pattern requires changing the …
The way your parents treated you in the first few years of life created a template for how you expect relationships to work. This is not pop psychology — it is …
TL;DR: Your early attachment experiences with caregivers created a relational template that you …
The graph is stark. A child born in the United States in 1940 had approximately a 90% chance of earning more than their parents (adjusted for inflation). A …
TL;DR: Intergenerational economic mobility has declined in the US since the 1940s. A child born in 1940 had …
GDP contracted 1.6% in the first quarter — the worst reading since the pandemic collapse of 2020 and the second consecutive quarter of negative growth. By the …
TL;DR: The 1.6% GDP decline, combined with the previous quarter's contraction, met the informal 'two …
In the beginning, everything is heightened. The text message that makes your heart rate spike. The anticipation of seeing them. The conversations that last …
TL;DR: The euphoria of new relationships is neurochemical, temporary, and unsustainable. The quieter form …
Stack Overflow launched in 2008 and within a few years became the most visited programming resource on the internet. The pitch was simple: a Q&A site for …
TL;DR: Stack Overflow's greatest contribution was not the code solutions — it was normalizing the idea that …
You look in the mirror and you see every flaw with high-definition clarity. The asymmetry. The skin texture. The feature that is too large or too small. You …
TL;DR: Most people rate themselves as less attractive than others rate them. Your self-perception is …
The US spends approximately $4.3 trillion annually on healthcare — roughly $12,900 per person. This is more than double what most other developed nations spend. …
TL;DR: The US spends more per capita on healthcare than any other developed nation while achieving worse …
Most advice about confidence gets the causation backwards. “Believe in yourself and you can do anything” implies that confidence comes first and …
TL;DR: Real confidence comes from evidence, not affirmations. Accomplish small things, build competence, …
Take programming away from a developer and what remains? The question is a thought experiment, but it reveals something real: how much of a developer’s …
TL;DR: Programming shapes how developers think, socialize, earn, and spend their time. Removing it reveals …
Dale Carnegie wrote about this in 1936, and the research since has mostly confirmed it: the single most reliable way to make people like you is to be genuinely …
TL;DR: The most reliable way to be liked is to be genuinely interested in other people. Ask questions, …
Making friends was effortless when you were young. You sat next to someone in class, played together at recess, and by the end of the week, you were best …
TL;DR: Adult friendships require three things: repeated unplanned interaction, shared context, and …
I had spent the month leading up to my 30th birthday running an internal audit. What had I accomplished? Where was I relative to where I thought I would be? The …
TL;DR: Turning 30 felt like a deadline. The letter — unexpected, sincere, from someone I had underestimated …
The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index, which has tracked American economic attitudes since 1952, dropped to its lowest level in the survey’s …
TL;DR: Consumer sentiment hit its lowest recorded level due to inflation, political polarization, and the …
If you have limited time to invest in skill development — and you do, everyone does — the question of which skills to prioritize is important. The answer is not …
TL;DR: The highest-value skills are meta-skills: clear thinking, clear communication, emotional regulation, …
If you are searching for how to stop being an introvert, you probably do not actually want to change your fundamental personality. You want to feel less limited …
TL;DR: Introversion is a temperament, not a flaw. You cannot change it, but you can develop social skills, …
“Trust your gut.” “Follow your heart.” “If it feels right, do it.” This advice is everywhere, and it is half right. Feelings …
TL;DR: Feelings are useful signals about your state, but poor guides for decisions. The best approach is to …
The relationship between poverty and unhappiness is so well-documented that it barely seems worth stating. Of course poor people are unhappy. But the mechanism …
TL;DR: Poverty creates unhappiness not through material deprivation alone but through chronic stress, …
The belief that you do not deserve love is not a conclusion you reached through evidence. It is a conviction that was installed early, usually by caregivers who …
TL;DR: Feeling undeserving of love is a learned belief, usually from childhood, that operates below …
Stack Overflow’s developer survey reported that 79% of developers were either actively looking for a new job or open to opportunities. The number sounds …
TL;DR: 79% of developers are at least open to new opportunities. The top drivers are compensation, growth …
When Facebook goes down, you know immediately — not because you were using Facebook, but because everyone starts talking about it. The outage that took …
TL;DR: Facebook's global outage was caused by a BGP routing withdrawal that made its DNS servers …
The question gets asked on forums, in surveys, and in late-night conversations between developers: why is maintaining a relationship so hard when you write code …
TL;DR: Programming rewards sustained focus on abstract problems. Relationships reward sustained attention …
The US national debt exceeded the total annual output of the economy — a debt-to-GDP ratio above 100%. The last time this happened was during World War II. The …
TL;DR: The US debt-to-GDP ratio exceeded 120%, the highest since WWII. Whether this is a crisis depends on …
When life is genuinely hard — not “I had a bad day” hard but “everything is falling apart simultaneously” hard — the standard advice is …
TL;DR: When life feels unbearable, the first step is not 'think positive' — it is to reduce the surface …
Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace report estimated that disengaged employees cost the US economy approximately $1.9 trillion in lost productivity …
TL;DR: Employee disengagement costs $1.9 trillion annually through reduced productivity, higher turnover, …
There is a specific pattern that many people recognize but few talk about honestly: you feel confident, capable, and worthy when you are in a relationship, and …
TL;DR: Relationship-dependent self-esteem is not about loving relationships too much — it is about having …
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is one of those sayings that is partly true, mostly misleading, and potentially harmful when …
TL;DR: Hard times can lead to genuine personal growth, but the growth is not automatic. It requires …
There is a particular kind of naivety that is not about being young or uninformed. It is the naivety of assuming that things work because they appear to work. …
TL;DR: The systems around you — workplaces, institutions, infrastructure — are often in worse shape than …
The median software developer in the US earns roughly $120,000 per year. In major tech hubs — San Francisco, Seattle, New York — total compensation at large …
TL;DR: Programmer salaries reflect market demand, not inherent worth. The 'overpaid' framing misunderstands …
The Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that US GDP contracted at an annualized rate of 1.4% in the first quarter. Headlines immediately invoked the word …
TL;DR: A single quarter of GDP contraction does not equal a recession. The 1.4% decline was driven by trade …
The mirror shows you a face. Your brain interprets the face. The interpretation is not neutral — it is filtered through years of comparison, criticism, and …
TL;DR: The belief that you are ugly operates independently of your actual appearance. It distorts …
You know you should eat better. You know you should exercise. You know you should sleep more, drink less, see the doctor, call the dentist, take the medication, …
TL;DR: Not taking care of yourself is rarely about not knowing what to do. It is about depleted capacity, …
The logic feels airtight: I do not feel good enough to be around people. Being around people makes me feel worse because I compare myself and come up short. The …
TL;DR: Isolation feels like protection from judgment, but it removes the experiences that could rebuild …
Every developer has the graveyard: the folder of abandoned side projects. Half-finished apps, repos with one commit, domain names for ideas that never got past …
TL;DR: Side projects succeed not through bursts of enthusiasm but through sustainable, small commitments. …
Sociologist Stanley Cohen defined moral panic in 1972: a condition, episode, person, or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal …
TL;DR: Moral panics are social phenomena where perceived threats are amplified far beyond their actual …
The Department of Labor reported that initial unemployment claims doubled in three weeks — a rate of increase that had no parallel in modern economic history. …
TL;DR: Unemployment claims doubling in three weeks represented millions of people losing their livelihoods …
You know the person. They arrive early. They leave late. Their calendar is a wall of colored blocks from 8 AM to 6 PM. They respond to Slack messages within …
TL;DR: Busyness is activity. Productivity is results. They are correlated weakly at best. The people who …
In 2010, Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton published a study that entered popular culture as a simple soundbite: happiness peaks at $75,000 in annual income. …
TL;DR: The $75,000 threshold applied to emotional well-being (daily mood), not life satisfaction. A 2023 …
When your iPhone screen cracks in San Diego, you have more options than you think — and fewer good ones than you’d hope. Here is a practical breakdown of …
TL;DR: iPhone repair in San Diego ranges from $29 for a simple battery replacement at a third-party shop to …
Survey after survey finds the same thing: when asked to rank priorities, Americans increasingly place financial stability above romantic relationships, starting …
TL;DR: When economic security is uncertain, people prioritize financial stability over relationships. The …
Every programmer has a language they consider the source of the worst code they have ever seen. PHP developers point at legacy WordPress plugins. JavaScript …
TL;DR: No language has a monopoly on bad code. Languages that prioritize flexibility tend to produce more …
I write code that does not work on the first try. I forget syntax for things I have done a hundred times. I make architectural decisions that I regret six …
TL;DR: Feeling like a terrible programmer is a nearly universal experience. It usually indicates that your …
In 1962, computers filled entire rooms. They ran on vacuum tubes and transistors, accepted input on punch cards, and cost millions of dollars. The idea that …
TL;DR: Early computer programs were used in medical diagnosis and monitoring. The boundary between software …
One month after reporting 7.9% year-over-year inflation for February, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the March 2022 numbers: 8.5%. The acceleration — …
TL;DR: March 2022 inflation of 8.5% was driven by energy prices (gasoline up 48% year-over-year) and food …
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in March 2022 that the Consumer Price Index rose 7.9% over the previous 12 months, ending in February. This was the …
TL;DR: 7.9% annual inflation meant everything cost more — groceries, gas, rent, utilities. The number was …
A look back at what was written and thought about during 2020 — a year that reshaped how many of us work, relate, and think about the future. June 2020 The …
June 2020 was a month of reckoning. Three months into a global pandemic, with social upheaval dominating the news cycle, the question of how to spend …
Published on June 11, 2020 Learning to Stop Complaining — On the habit of complaint, its hidden costs, and the work of choosing a different response. This was …
I used to complain constantly. Not dramatically — I was not shouting at the sky or writing angry letters. I was doing the quiet, pervasive kind: narrating …
TL;DR: Complaint feels productive because it articulates a problem. But chronic complaining trains your …