Also: Chinese open models match closed ones from Anthropic and OpenAI, AWS’s “heart-attack” billing error, and more
The Pragmatic Engineer
https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/ · 36 posts · history since 2026 · active
23 Jul
21 Jul
Turbopuffer cofounder Simon Eskildsen on the benefits of longer tenure, using first principles to build durable software – and why founders should be cautious when raising VC money
16 Jul
Also: engineering leaders concerned about continued increase in code review load, devs at enterprises surprised by high enterprise pricing, and more
15 Jul
Dex Horthy explains why context engineering is key to building more effective AI-assisted software without sacrificing code quality.
14 Jul
There’s talk about loop engineering, but what is it exactly? I looked into it, and found triggers, cron jobs, AI slop & more. Is it a “here today, gone tomorrow” trend?
9 Jul
A rewrite done in 11 days that would have taken a small team a year to complete, for $165K in tokens. Also: coding LLM “wars” heat up, AI fakers from North Korea still a problem when hiring, and more
8 Jul
In this AMA episode, Gergely Orosz answers listener questions on AI, engineering, hiring, and careers.
7 Jul
The market where nobody finds each other, the hottest market for AI-related positions, tough for engineering leaders, and more. Based on details from 50+ hiring managers & job seekers
1 Jul
Kent Beck reflects on Agile, TDD, and why building trust—not just generating code—will define the future of software engineering in the AI era.
30 Jun
A peek into where software engineering is headed from inside the sector’s leading AI labs. Agents running in the cloud are a major trend, while coding harnesses are spreading beyond the craft
24 Jun
NeetCode shares his journey from Amazon and Google to building a startup, and why deep expertise still matters in the age of AI.
23 Jun
An overview of what’s changed in engineering during the last six months, how various tech companies are changing how they work, and why slowing down could be a sensible strategy
18 Jun
Also: a follow-up on Meta destroying its own engineering culture, the SpaceX IPO, SpaceX buys Cursor, Cursor’s GitHub competitor, and more.
17 Jun
Robert Erez of Octopus Deploy joins me to discuss Kubernetes, GitOps, progressive delivery, AI in CI/CD, and the evolving practices behind modern software delivery.
16 Jun
Leadership at the social media giant has been on an AI-fueled rampage through its engineering org. We report what’s happened
11 Jun
Anthropic’s new model, Fable, has restrictions many users find unacceptable. Also: a new trend of smart model routing, Coinbase’s core service has no automatic cross-zone failover, and more.
9 Jun
Deepdive into the tech jobs market with exclusive data revealing AI labs are more attractive than Big Tech, native mobile & frontend roles are declining, management’s “great flattening”, and more
3 Jun
Kelsey Hightower reflects on his journey from self-taught technician to Google Distinguished Engineer, sharing lessons on open source, Kubernetes, AI, and building technology that serves people.
2 Jun
Devs are generating twice as much code (or more) than just 6 months ago, which is a problem for quality, reliability, and tech debt. A rational fix is available for these, but who’s acting rationally?
28 May
Top-down and bottom-up efforts to rationalize AI token spend, interesting AI coding stats from Cursor, GCP suspends $2M/month customer without warning, and more
27 May
Dax Raad, co-founder of OpenCode, joins the show to discuss their explosive growth, the limits of AI coding tools, and why engineering judgment still matters.
26 May
A deepdive into today’s tech jobs market, with exclusive data on software engineering jobs, the AI engineering boom, whether AI engineering is “replacing” software engineering hiring, and more
21 May
Negative feedback greets Google’s redesigned AI IDE, why Google’s product ecosystem is so chaotic, Meta cuts 10% of staff as it hits record revenue and profits, and more
20 May
Alice Ryhl from Google’s Android Rust team explains why developers love Rust, and what makes the language so powerful for building reliable software.
19 May
Tradeoffs of AI tooling, why adopting AI at company-level is hard, what’s changed in two years, and more. The third and final part of a series analyzing our 2026 AI survey results
14 May
Also: a look into rising tech job losses, self-reporting 100% AI usage at big companies, vibe coding & agentic engineering merging, and more
13 May
Anders Hejlsberg reflects on building Turbo Pascal, C#, and TypeScript, and shares what AI may change about the future of software engineering.
12 May
Does the noted “No Silver Bullets” paper by the author of a classic engineering book still hold up, 40 years later? Is AI the long-sought single silver bullet – or has one been around for years?
7 May
Also: Amazon finally allows engineers to use Claude Code and Codex, Meta forcefully assigns engineers to data labelling work ahead of layoffs, more small “AI-forward” teams, and more
5 May
How the cloud changes the way we build applications, and why engineers’ ethical choices matter more than ever. Excerpt from the book, ‘Designing Data-Intensive Applications’, 2nd edition
30 Apr
Also: Anthropic’s speed run to break devs’ goodwill, big price increases from GitHub Copilot, Mitchell Hashimoto on the “building block economy,” and more
29 Apr
Mario Zechner, creator of Pi, joins Armin Ronacher to explore AI coding’s limits, arguing that human judgment still matters most in an agent-driven world.
28 Apr
A deepdive with the Canonical team into how AI is changing Ubuntu, why they’re betting on local-first LLMs, and a look into other Linux distributions
23 Apr
Details from 15 tech companies on the rapid growth of token spend, and their responses to it. Also: AI vendors can’t keep up with demand, plummeting morale at Meta, and more.
22 Apr
Martin Kleppmann on scaling, his updated Designing Data-Intensive Applications, and what’s next for AI-era systems.
21 Apr
Steve Huynh, formerly Principal Engineer at Amazon, shares observations from 10+ years of interviewing software engineers, and an excerpt from his new book, Technical Behavioral Interview