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Gergely Orosz

Software 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. 

newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com

The Pragmatic Engineer

Welcome to The Pragmatic Engineer Podcast, hosted by Gergely Orosz, the author of The Pragmatic Engineer newsletter. In each episode, we dive deep into the world of software engineering, offering practical insights on scaling teams, engineering leadership, and navigating the evolving tech landscape. With industry veterans and successful engineers as guests, this podcast is perfect for anyone looking to level up their engineering career with real-world advice.

Subscribe to the podcast on YouTube, on Spotify, or Apple.

You can also subscribe to the newsletter here.
 

Get full access to The Pragmatic Engineer at newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/subscribe

The Pragmatic Engineer Podcast: Trailer

The first episode of The Pragmatic Engineer Podcast is out. Expect similar episodes every other Wednesday. You can add the podcast in your favorite podcast player, and have future episodes downloaded automatically.

Listen now on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.

Brought to you by:

• Codeium: ​​Join the 700K+ developers using the IT-approved AI-powered code assistant.

• TLDR: Keep up with tech in 5 minutes

—

On the first episode of the Pragmatic Engineer Podcast, I am joined by Simon Willison.

Simon is one of the best-known software engineers experimenting with LLMs to boost his own productivity: he’s been doing this for more than three years, blogging about it in the open.

Simon is the creator of Datasette, an open-source tool for exploring and publishing data. He works full-time developing open-source tools for data journalism, centered on Datasette and SQLite. Previously, he was an engineering director at Eventbrite, joining through the acquisition of Lanyrd, a Y Combinator startup he co-founded in 2010. Simon is also a co-creator of the Django Web Framework. He has been blogging about web development since the early 2000s.

In today’s conversation, we dive deep into the realm of Gen AI and talk about the following: 

• Simon’s initial experiments with LLMs and coding tools

• Why fine-tuning is generally a waste of time—and when it’s not

• RAG: an overview

• Interacting with GPTs voice mode

• Simon’s day-to-day LLM stack

• Common misconceptions about LLMs and ethical gray areas 

• How Simon’s productivity has increased and his generally optimistic view on these tools

• Tips, tricks, and hacks for interacting with GenAI tools

• And more!

I hope you enjoy this episode.

—

In this episode, we cover:

(02:15) Welcome

(05:28) Simon’s ‘scary’ experience with ChatGPT

(10:58) Simon’s initial experiments with LLMs and coding tools

(12:21) The languages that LLMs excel at

(14:50) To start LLMs by understanding the theory, or by playing around?

(16:35) Fine-tuning: what it is, and why it’s mostly a waste of time

(18:03) Where fine-tuning works

(18:31) RAG: an explanation

(21:34) The expense of running testing on AI

(23:15) Simon’s current AI stack 

(29:55) Common misconceptions about using LLM tools

(30:09) Simon’s stack – continued 

(32:51) Learnings from running local models

(33:56) The impact of Firebug and the introduction of open-source 

(39:42) How Simon’s productivity has increased using LLM tools

(41:55) Why most people should limit themselves to 3-4 programming languages

(45:18) Addressing ethical issues and resistance to using generative AI

(49:11) Are LLMs are plateauing? Is AGI overhyped?

(55:45) Coding vs. professional coding, looking ahead

(57:27) The importance of systems thinking for software engineers 

(1:01:00) Simon’s advice for experienced engineers

(1:06:29) Rapid-fire questions

—

Where to find Simon Willison:

• X: https://x.com/simonw

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonwillison/

• Website: https://simonwillison.net/

• Mastodon: https://fedi.simonwillison.net/@simon

—

Referenced:

• Simon’s LLM project: https://github.com/simonw/llm

• Jeremy Howard’s Fast Ai: https://www.fast.ai/

• jq programming language: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jq_(programming_language)

• Datasette: https://datasette.io/

• GPT Code Interpreter: https://platform.openai.com/docs/assistants/tools/code-interpreter

• Open Ai Playground: https://platform.openai.com/playground/chat

• Advent of Code: https://adventofcode.com/

• Rust programming language: https://www.rust-lang.org/

• Applied AI Software Engineering: RAG: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/rag

• Claude: https://claude.ai/

• Claude 3.5 sonnet: https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-3-5-sonnet

• ChatGPT can now see, hear, and speak: https://openai.com/index/chatgpt-can-now-see-hear-and-speak/

• GitHub Copilot: https://github.com/features/copilot

• What are Artifacts and how do I use them?: https://support.anthropic.com/en/articles/9487310-what-are-artifacts-and-how-do-i-use-them

• Large Language Models on the command line: https://simonwillison.net/2024/Jun/17/cli-language-models/

• Llama: https://www.llama.com/

• MLC chat on the app store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/mlc-chat/id6448482937

• Firebug: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firebug_(software)#

• NPM: https://www.npmjs.com/

• Django: https://www.djangoproject.com/

• Sourceforge: https://sourceforge.net/

• CPAN: https://www.cpan.org/

• OOP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-oriented_programming

• Prolog: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prolog

• SML: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_ML

• Stabile Diffusion: https://stability.ai/

• Chain of thought prompting: https://www.promptingguide.ai/techniques/cot

• Cognition AI: https://www.cognition.ai/

• In the Race to Artificial General Intelligence, Where’s the Finish Line?: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-does-artificial-general-intelligence-actually-mean/

• Black swan theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory

• Copilot workspace: https://githubnext.com/projects/copilot-workspace

• Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems: https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Data-Intensive-Applications-Reliable-Maintainable/dp/1449373321

• Bluesky Global: https://www.blueskyglobal.org/

• The Atrocity Archives (Laundry Files #1): https://www.amazon.com/Atrocity-Archives-Laundry-Files/dp/0441013651

• Rivers of London: https://www.amazon.com/Rivers-London-Ben-Aaronovitch/dp/1625676158/

• Vanilla JavaScript: http://vanilla-js.com/

• jQuery: https://jquery.com/

• Fly.io: https://fly.io/

—

Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@pragmaticengineer.com.

 

Get full access to The Pragmatic Engineer at newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/subscribe

AI tools for software engineers, but without the hype – with Simon Willison (co-creator of Django)

Brought to you by:

• Paragon: ​​Build native, customer-facing SaaS integrations 7x faster.

• WorkOS: For B2B leaders building enterprise SaaS

—

On today’s episode of The Pragmatic Engineer, I’m joined by Quinn Slack, CEO and co-founder of Sourcegraph, a leading code search and intelligence platform. Quinn holds a degree in Computer Science from Stanford and is deeply passionate about coding: to the point that he still codes every day! He also serves on the board of Hack Club, a national nonprofit dedicated to bringing coding clubs to high schools nationwide. In this insightful conversation, we discuss: 

• How Sourcegraph's operations have evolved since 2021

• Why more software engineers should focus on delivering business value

• Why Quinn continues to code every day, even as a CEO

• Practical AI and LLM use cases and a phased approach to their adoption

• The story behind Job Fairs at Sourcegraph and why it’s no longer in use

• Quinn’s leadership style and his focus on customers and product excellence

• The shift from location-independent pay to zone-based pay at Sourcegraph

• And much more!

—

Where to find Quinn Slack:

• X: https://x.com/sqs

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/quinnslack/

• Website: https://slack.org/

Where to find Gergely:

• Newsletter: https://www.pragmaticengineer.com/

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/mrgergelyorosz

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gergelyorosz/

• X: https://x.com/GergelyOrosz

—

In this episode, we cover:

(01:35) How Sourcegraph started and how it has evolved over the past 11 years

(04:14) How scale-ups have changed 

(08:27) Learnings from 2021 and how Sourcegraph’s operations have streamlined

(15:22) Why Quinn is for gradual increases in automation and other thoughts on AI

(18:10) The importance of changelogs

(19:14) Keeping AI accountable and possible future use cases 

(22:29) Current limitations of AI

(25:08) Why early adopters of AI coding tools have an advantage 

(27:38) Why AI is not yet capable of understanding existing codebases 

(31:53) Changes at Sourcegraph since the deep dive on The Pragmatic Engineer blog

(40:14) The importance of transparency and understanding the different forms of compensation

(40:22) Why Sourcegraph shifted to zone-based pay

(47:15) The journey from engineer to CEO

(53:28) A comparison of a typical week 11 years ago vs. now

(59:20) Rapid fire round

The Pragmatic Engineer deepdives relevant for this episode:

• Inside Sourcegraph’s engineering culture: Part 1 https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/inside-sourcegraphs-engineering-culture• Inside Sourcegraph’s engineering culture: Part 2 https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/inside-sourcegraphs-engineering-culture-part-2

—

References and Transcript:

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.
 

Get full access to The Pragmatic Engineer at newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/subscribe

Efficient scaleups in 2024 vs 2021: Sourcegraph (with CEO & Co-founder Quinn Slack)

Brought to you by:

• The Enterprise Ready Conference on October 30th — For B2B leaders building enterprise SaaS.

• DX — DX is an engineering intelligence platform designed by leading researchers. 

• ByteByteGo — Ace your next system design interview.

—

You may not be familiar with Bending Spoons, but I guarantee you’ve encountered some of their well-known products, like Evernote and Meetup. In today’s episode of The Pragmatic Engineer, we sit down with three key figures from the Italy-based startup: cofounder and CEO Luca Ferrari, CTO Francesco Mancone, and Evernote product lead Federico Simionato. Bending Spoons has been profitable from day one, and there's plenty we can learn from their unique culture, organizational structure, engineering processes, and hiring practices. In today’s conversation, we cover the following topics:

• The controversial acquisitions approach of Bending Spoons

• How Bending Spoons spent more than $1 billion in buying tech companies

• How the Evernote acquisition happened

• How Bending Spoons operates and how it organizes product and platform teams

• Why engineering processes are different across different products

• How ‘radical simplicity’ is baked into everything from engineering processes to pay structure.

• And much more!

—

The Pragmatic Engineer deepdives relevant for this episode:

• Good attrition, bad attrition for software engineers: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/attrition 

• Healthy oncall practices: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/healthy-oncall-practices • Shipping to production: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/shipping-to-production

• QA across the tech industry: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/qa-across-tech

—

In this episode, we cover:

(2:09) Welcome, Luca, Francesco, and Federico from Bending Spoons

(03:15) An overview of the well-known apps and products owned by Bending Spoons

(06:38) The elephant in the room: how Bending Spoons really acquires companies

(09:46) Layoffs: Bending Spoons’ philosophy on this

(14:10) Controversial principles

(17:16) Revenue, team size, and products

(19:35) How Bending Spoons runs AI products and allocates GPUs

(23:05) History of the company

(27:04) The Evernote acquisition

(29:50) Modernizing Evernote’s infrastructure

(32:44) “Radical simplicity” and why they try for zero on calls

(36:13) More on changes made to the Evernote systems

(41:13) How Bending Spoons prioritizes and ships fast 

(49:40) What’s new and what’s coming for Bending Spoons

(51:08) Organizational structure at the company

(54:07) Engineering practices

(57:03) Testing approaches

(58:53) Platform teams

(1:01:52) Bending Spoons tech stack and popular frameworks

(1:05:55) Why Bending Spoons hires new grads and less experienced engineers

(1:08:09) The structure of careers and titles at Bending Spoons

(1:09:50) Traits they look for when hiring 

(1:12:50) Why there aren’t many companies doing what Bending Spoons does 

—

Where to find Luca Ferrari:

• X: https://x.com/luke10ferrari

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luca-ferrari-12418318

Where to find Francesco Mancone:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/francesco-mancone

Where to find Federico Simionato:

• X: https://x.com/fedesimio

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/federicosimionato

Where to find Gergely:

• Newsletter: https://www.pragmaticengineer.com/

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/mrgergelyorosz

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gergelyorosz/

• X: https://x.com/GergelyOrosz

—

References and Transcripts:

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.
 

Get full access to The Pragmatic Engineer at newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/subscribe

Twisting the rules of building software: Bending Spoons (the team behind Evernote)

Brought to you by:

• WorkOS — The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS.

• Sonar — Trust your developers – verify your AI-generated code.

—

In today’s episode of The Pragmatic Engineer, I’m joined by Irina Stanescu, a seasoned engineer with over 14 years in software engineering and engineering leadership roles at tech companies like Google and Uber. Now an engineering leadership coach, Irina helps tech professionals build impactful careers, teaches a course on influence, and shares insights through her newsletter, The Caring Techie. In our conversation today, Irina shares her journey of rising through the ranks at Google and Uber. We dive into the following topics: 

• An inside look at Google’s unique working processes

• How to build credibility as a new engineer

• Tactical tips for getting promoted 

• The importance of having a career plan and guidance in designing one

• Having influence vs. influencing—and how to become more influential 

• Essential leadership skills to develop

• And so much more

—

In this episode, we cover:

(01:34) Irina’s time at Google

(03:10) An overview of ‘design docs’ at Google

(08:27) The readiness review at Google

(10:40) Why Irina uses spreadsheets

(11:44) Irina’s favorite tools and how she uses them

(13:46) How Google certifies readability

(15:40) Google’s meme generator 

(17:36) Advice for engineers thinking about working for an organization like Google

(20:14) How promotions work at Google

(23:15) How Irina worked towards getting promoted 

(27:50) How Irina got her first mentor 

(30:44) Organizational shifts at Uber while Irina and Gergely were there

(35:50) Why you should prioritize growth over promotion

(36:50) What a career plan is and how to build one

(40:40) Irina’s current role coaching engineers 

(42:23) A simple explanation of influence and influencing 

(51:54) Why saying no is necessary at times

(54:30) The importance of building leadership skills

—

The Pragmatic Engineer deepdives relevant for this episode:

• Preparing for promotions ahead of time: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/preparing-for-promotions 

• Engineering career paths at Big Tech and scaleups: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/engineering-career-paths 

• Getting an Engineering Executive Job: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/getting-an-engineering-executive 

• The Seniority Rollercoaster: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/the-seniority-rollercoaster

—

Where to find Irina Stanescu:

• X: https://x.com/thecaringtechie

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/irinastanescu/

• Website: https://www.thecaringtechie.com/

• Maven course: Impact through Influence in Engineering Teams: https://maven.com/irina-stanescu/influence-swe

Where to find Gergely:

• Newsletter: https://www.pragmaticengineer.com/

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/mrgergelyorosz

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gergelyorosz/

• X: https://x.com/GergelyOrosz

—

References and Transcripts:

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.

 

Get full access to The Pragmatic Engineer at newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/subscribe

Promotions and tooling at Google (with Irina Stanescu, Ex-Google)

Brought to you by:

• Launch Darkly — a platform for high-velocity engineering teams to release, monitor, and optimize great software. 

• Sevalla — Deploy anything from preview environments to Docker images.

• WorkOS — The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS.

—

On today’s episode of The Pragmatic Engineer, I’m joined by fellow Uber alum, Sabin Roman, now the first Engineering Manager at Linear. Linear, known for its powerful project and issue-tracking system, streamlines workflows throughout the product development process.

In our conversation today, Sabin and I compare building projects at Linear versus our experiences at Uber. He shares insights into Linear’s unique approaches, including:

• How Linear handles internal communications

• The “goalie” program to address customer concerns and Linear’s zero bug policy

• How Linear keeps teams connected despite working entirely remotely

• An in-depth, step-by-step walkthrough of a project at Linear

• Linear’s focus on quality and creativity over fash shipping 

• Titles at Linear, Sabin’s learnings from Uber, and much more!

Timestamps

(00:00) Intro

(01:41) Sabin’s background

(02:45) Why Linear rarely uses e-mail internally

(07:32) An overview of Linear's company profile

(08:03) Linear’s tech stack

(08:20) How Linear operated without product people

(09:40) How Linear stays close to customers

(11:27) The shortcomings of Support Engineers at Uber and why Linear’s “goalies” work better

(16:35) Focusing on bugs vs. new features

(18:55) Linear’s hiring process

(21:57) An overview of a typical call with a hiring manager at Linear

(24:13) The pros and cons of Linear’s remote work culture

(29:30) The challenge of managing teams remotely

(31:44) A step-by-step walkthrough of how Sabin built a project at Linear 

(45:47) Why Linear’s unique working process works 

(49:57) The Helix project at Uber and differences in operations working at a large company

(57:47) How senior engineers operate at Linear vs. at a large company

(1:01:30) Why Linear has no levels for engineers 

(1:07:13) Less experienced engineers at Linear

(1:08:56) Sabin’s big learnings from Uber

(1:09:47) Rapid fire round

—

The Pragmatic Engineer deepdives relevant for this episode:

• The story of Linear, as told by its CTO

• An update on Linear, after their $35M fundraise

• Software engineers leading projects

• Netflix’s historic introduction of levels for software engineers

—

Where to find Sabin Roman:

• X: https://x.com/sabin_roman

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sabinroman/

Where to find Gergely:

• Newsletter: https://www.pragmaticengineer.com/

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/mrgergelyorosz

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gergelyorosz/

• X: https://x.com/GergelyOrosz

—

References and Transcripts:

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.
 

Get full access to The Pragmatic Engineer at newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/subscribe

Linear: move fast with little process (with first engineering manager Sabin Roman)

Brought to you by:

• WorkOS — The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS.

• Sevalla — Deploy anything from preview environments to Docker images.

• Chronosphere — The observability platform built for control.

—

Welcome to The Pragmatic Engineer! Today, I’m thrilled to be joined by Grady Booch, a true legend in software development. Grady is the Chief Scientist for Software Engineering at IBM, where he leads groundbreaking research in embodied cognition.

He’s the mind behind several object-oriented design concepts, a co-author of the Unified Modeling Language, and a founding member of the Agile Alliance and the Hillside Group.

Grady has authored six books, hundreds of articles, and holds prestigious titles as an IBM, ACM, and IEEE Fellow, as well as a recipient of the Lovelace Medal (an award for those with outstanding contributions to the advancement of computing). In this episode, we discuss:

• What it means to be an IBM Fellow

• The evolution of the field of software development

• How UML was created, what its goals were, and why Grady disagrees with the direction of later versions of UML

• Pivotal moments in software development history

• How the software architect role changed over the last 50 years

• Why Grady declined to be the Chief Architect of Microsoft – saying no to Bill Gates!

• Grady’s take on large language models (LLMs)

• Advice to less experienced software engineers

• … and much more!

—

Timestamps

(00:00) Intro

(01:56) What it means to be a Fellow at IBM

(03:27) Grady’s work with legacy systems

(09:25) Some examples of domains Grady has contributed to

(11:27) The evolution of the field of software development

(16:23) An overview of the Booch method

(20:00) Software development prior to the Booch method

(22:40) Forming Rational Machines with Paul and Mike

(25:35) Grady’s work with Bjarne Stroustrup

(26:41) ROSE and working with the commercial sector

(30:19) How Grady built UML with Ibar Jacobson and James Rumbaugh

(36:08) An explanation of UML and why it was a mistake to turn it into a programming language

(40:25) The IBM acquisition and why Grady declined Bill Gates’s job offer 

(43:38) Why UML is no longer used in industry 

(52:04) Grady’s thoughts on formal methods

(53:33) How the software architect role changed over time

(1:01:46) Disruptive changes and major leaps in software development

(1:07:26) Grady’s early work in AI

(1:12:47) Grady’s work with Johnson Space Center

(1:16:41) Grady’s thoughts on LLMs 

(1:19:47) Why Grady thinks we are a long way off from sentient AI 

(1:25:18) Grady’s advice to less experienced software engineers

(1:27:20) What’s next for Grady

(1:29:39) Rapid fire round

—

The Pragmatic Engineer deepdives relevant for this episode:

• The Past and Future of Modern Backend Practices https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/the-past-and-future-of-backend-practices 

• What Changed in 50 Years of Computing https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/what-changed-in-50-years-of-computing 

• AI Tooling for Software Engineers: Reality Check https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/ai-tooling-2024

—

Where to find Grady Booch:

• X: https://x.com/grady_booch

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gradybooch

• Website: https://computingthehumanexperience.com

Where to find Gergely:

• Newsletter: https://www.pragmaticengineer.com/

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/mrgergelyorosz

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gergelyorosz/

• X: https://x.com/GergelyOrosz

—

References and Transcripts:

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.
 

Get full access to The Pragmatic Engineer at newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/subscribe

Software architecture with Grady Booch

Supported by Our Partner

DX⁠ → DX is an engineering intelligence platform designed by leading researchers

—

In today’s exciting episode of The Pragmatic Engineer, I am joined by two members of the Notion mobile apps team, Austin Louden and Karn Saheb. Austin and Karn joined Notion in 2019 when Notion was revamping its mobile apps. 

Notion is a versatile productivity and collaboration platform that combines note-taking, task management, and knowledge organization into a single workspace. It is available as a web app, as well as iOS and Android apps for mobile use.

In our conversation today, we take a deep dive into how the Notion mobile team operates and discuss the following: 

• What the engineering culture is like at Notion 

• Why the mobile team focuses so much on app performance

• The incremental shift from Cordova to Native 

• Notion’s tech stack and frameworks they rely on 

• How the mobile team maintains consistency across iOS and Android

• Unique features of the development process, including a public beta, using modules, and practices around feature flags

• … and much more!

—

Timestamps

(00:00) Intro

(02:03) The RFC process at Notion 

(06:00) How Notion uses internal channels to share RFCs

(07:57) Some of the unique ways the mobile team works

(11:07) Why they don’t do sprint planning at Notion—and what they do instead

(12:57) An overview of the size of Notion and teams at Notion

(13:15) The beginning of mobile at Notion

(14:40) A simple explanation of Cordova

(15:40) Why Notion decided to revamp mobile in 2019 and shift to Native

(18:30) How the mobile team evaluated performance as they made the shift to Native

(22:00) Scaling mobile and iterations of moving to Native 

(26:04) Why the home tab project was so complex

(30:59) Why the mobile team saved the editor for last and other future problems

(34:35) How mobile works with other teams 

(36:50) How iOS and Android teams work together 

(38:28) The tech stack at Notion

(39:30) How frameworks are used

(41:57) Pros and cons of different frameworks and why Swift was the right choice

(45:16) How code reviews work at Notion

(48:23) Notion’s mobile team’s testing philosophy

(50:18) How the mobile team keeps compile time so fast

(52:36) Modules in the iOS app

(54:50) Modules in the Android app

(56:44) Behind the scenes of an app release and the public beta

(1:00:34) Practices around feature flags

(1:03:00) The four dev environments at Notion

(1:04:48) How development apps work 

(1:07:40) How and why you can work offline in Notion mobile 

(1:10:24) Austin and Karn’s thoughts on the future of mobile engineering 

(1:12:47) Advice for junior engineers

(1:16:29) Rapid fire round

—

The Pragmatic Engineer deepdives relevant for this episode:

—

Where to find Austin Louden:

• GitHub: https://github.com/austinlouden

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/austinlouden

• Website: https://austinlouden.com/

Where to find Karn Saheb:

• GitHub: https://github.com/Karn

• LinkedIn: https://github.com/Karn

• Website: https://karn.io

Where to find Gergely:

• Newsletter: https://www.pragmaticengineer.com/

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/mrgergelyorosz

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gergelyorosz/

• X: https://x.com/GergelyOrosz

—

References and Transcripts:

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.
 

Get full access to The Pragmatic Engineer at newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/subscribe

Notion: going native on iOS and Android

Supported by Our Partner

DX⁠ → DX is an engineering intelligence platform designed by leading researchers

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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!

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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.
 

Get full access to The Pragmatic Engineer at newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/subscribe

Shipping projects at Big Tech with Sean Goedecke

Supported by Our Partners

• DX — DX is an engineering intelligence platform designed by leading researchers. 

• Vanta — Automate compliance and simplify security with Vanta.

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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.
 

Get full access to The Pragmatic Engineer at newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/subscribe

The Pragmatic Engineer Podcast: Trailer

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