Software Engineering Toolbox

Sayings and mantras

• “Problems are good. We solve problems.” – adopt an optimistic, action-oriented attitude
• “If you like it, then you shoulda put a CI test on it.” – aka The Beyoncé Rule.
• “Win and help win” – a guiding philosophy for tech that is ambitious, positive-sum, and collective

Best practices

• Principles for engineers – Focus on delivering value to customers. Communicate proactively. Encourage critique. Take initiative. Debug scientifically. Practice habits.
• Code Review best practices
• Design Docs for software architecture review
• Debug scientifically
• Auto-format and lint everything
• Automate dependency updates

Technical guides

• FastAPI for ML inference
• ML on a Mac
• Machine Learning quick start
• Learn Neural Networks with Andrej Karpathy
• Dark mode with CSS variables and Stimulus
• Embeddable Javascript widgets
• Rails on Kubernetes
• A modern app tech stack, built for speed – why small teams can go faster with Rails + ViewComponent + Tailwind CSS + Hotwire
• API design patterns

Misc technical posts

• ML papers
• ML snippets
• Postgres tips
• Language syntax review for Go, Javascript, Ruby, Rails, and SQL
• Prevent pushing to main branch
• Practicing Scrum
• Learning Go

Reading list

Selections from my Reading list

Software Engineering

• Software Engineering At Google (Winters)
• The Phoenix Project (Kim)
• A Philosophy Of Software Design (Ousterhout)
• Clean Architecture (Fowler)

Business

• Principles: Life and Work (Dalio)
• Accelerate: Building and Scaling High-Performing Technology Organizations (Forsgren)
• Sprint (Knapp)

Product

• Product-Led Growth: How to Build a Product That Sells Itself (Bush)

Biographies

• Elon Musk (Vance)
• The Innovators (Isaacson)
• Steve Jobs (Isaacson)

Health

• Atomic Habits (Clear)
• The Power Of Habit (Duhigg)
• Thinking, Fast and Slow (Kahneman)

Philosophy

• The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness (Jorgenson)
• Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (Taleb)
• The Obstacle Is The Way (Holiday)

Science

• The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World (Deutsch)
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Harari)

More resources

• The Pragmatic Engineer Newsletter