Senior Engineers: Master Politics, Cultivate Ideas, Navigate AI
Related Episodes
Wiz's Product-Led, Customer-Obsessed Cloud Security Disruption
Wiz achieves rapid enterprise adoption by delivering immediate cloud security value within an hour, bypassing lengthy deployments and fostering customer pull through deep workflow integration.
View Episode Notes →
Zig's Paradigm Shift and Creative Input Strategies
Zig revolutionizes programming beyond C/C++, creativity sparks from novel inputs, not just effort, and BuildKit compiles containers like a compiler.
View Episode Notes →
AI Accelerates Development Bottlenecks to Integration and Deployment
AI tools shift bottlenecks from coding to integration, demanding better observability. Moving faster requires courage and focus on outcomes, not just busyness.
View Episode Notes →
AI's Surreal Leap: Jobs Vanish, Math Conquered, Laundry Waits
AI isn't a bubble; it's a surreal leap where math problems fall before laundry folds, threatening 10% of jobs and demanding massive infrastructure.
View Episode Notes →
Treating LLMs as APIs Requires Defensive Programming and Structured Output
Treat LLMs as programmable APIs, not black boxes. Implement defensive programming with caching and structured outputs to manage unpredictability and ensure data integrity.
View Episode Notes →
AI Reshapes Engineering: From Code to Architecture
AI reshapes software engineering from coding to architecture and expands software's capabilities into human-like tasks, potentially automating significant portions of US labor by 2030.
View Episode Notes →Resources
Resources & Recommendations
Books
- "Situational Awareness" by Leopold Aschenbrenner - This book was mentioned in the context of anticipating how AI models could be improved even without direct model enhancements, focusing on tooling and the ability to act on information.
People Mentioned
- Sean Gadecki (Staff Software Engineer at GitHub, prolific software blogger) - The main guest of the episode, discussing his blog posts on software engineering, organizational politics, code reviews, and the impact of AI.
- Kyle Galbreath (Co-founder and CEO of Depot Dev) - Discussed the changing landscape of software engineering, particularly the impact of AI on build pipelines and developer velocity.
- Wh Auden - Referenced for his quote about enjoying one's own handwriting being like enjoying the smell of one's own farts, humorously applied to writing blog posts about blogging.
- Aristotle - Referenced in the discussion about "good taste" in software engineering, drawing a parallel to the philosopher's concept of a good person adapting their virtues to specific situations.
Organizations & Institutions
- GitHub - Sean Gadecki's employer, where he works as a staff software engineer, providing context for his discussions on large organizational politics and his work on Copilot.
- Depot Dev - A company focused on eliminating bottlenecks in the software development pipeline, especially in the context of increasing code velocity due to AI agents.
- Tiger Data - Mentioned as the creator of "Agentic Postgres," a database built for AI agents.
- NordLayer - A network security platform providing VPN, access control, and threat protection for businesses.
- Fly.io - A public cloud built for developers who ship.
Websites & Online Resources
- Sean Gadecki's blog - The primary subject of the discussion, where Sean publishes his thoughts on software engineering, career, and industry trends.
- Hacker News - A social news website focused on computer science and entrepreneurship, where Sean's blog posts frequently reach the top.
- Tigerdata.com - Website to learn more about Agentic Postgres and install its CLI.
- Depot.dev - Website to explore their solutions for faster and more reliable software builds.
- Augmentcode.com - A platform for AI-powered software development, offering tools like context engines, chat, and completions.
- Nordlayer.com/thechangelog - Website to learn more about NordLayer's network security platform.
- The Changelog (youtube.com/changelog) - The podcast's YouTube channel, where bonus segments for plus-plus members are also available.