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Last month, I processed 4.88 billion tokens through an LLM. My bill: $120 . If I had run the same workload on a famous frontier model, the minimum estimate would have been $4,900 . On other frontier providers’ cheapest tiers: $4,880 . I didn’t save money by being cheap. I saved money by being intentional about which model does what. The Obvious Thing Nobody Does # Every major LLM…
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The history of developer tooling is not a history of engineering excellence. It’s a history of business pressure. Every major tool in the modern software stack was adopted not because engineers decided it was elegant, but because a business somewhere needed to ship faster, react faster, or scale faster — and the existing tooling couldn’t keep up. AI is the latest entry in this pattern.…
Providing Feedback — A Practical Guide # 🎯 Feedback Is a Tool, Not a Goal # Feedback exists to realize a change . If your intention begins and ends with “I need to give feedback,” you’re not providing feedback — you’re dumping it. Before you open your mouth, answer one question: What change do I want to see? If you can’t articulate the desired outcome clearly, stop.…
Translated and organized insights from Diaa Radwan’s Twitter thread on professional communication, focusing on how to present achievements and handle workplace interactions effectively. Results-Focused Communication # “Performance isn’t about activity. Any sentence about something you did that didn’t score a goal, don’t write it. Did you score a goal or were you just…
1. The Problem # 1.1 Is Communication Easy? # Despite being our primary method of interaction, communication is fundamentally complex and error-prone. Recent research provides some striking insights: Information retention varies significantly: 10-20% for one-way vocal communications compared to 50-70% for interactive discussions (Study.com, 2023). When reading information, people typically retain…
Leaders are fundamentally different from managers - a distinction often overlooked in organizational development. Leaders operate primarily through influence and relationship capital, while managers function through formal authority. You can recruit managers through standard hiring processes, but true leadership cultivation requires a different approach entirely. Why Develop Leaders Internally vs.…
The Power of Human Collaboration # Reading through books like “Sapiens” by Yuval Noah Harari and reflecting on my own experiences has reinforced a fundamental truth: our collective intelligence as humans far outweighs individual brilliance. Our collaborative nature drives progress more effectively than isolated intellect ever could. Feedback is perhaps the most direct manifestation of…
Several years into my software engineering career, I made a surprising discovery: my job doesn’t start with code—it starts with communication and listening. Like many engineers, I joined this industry because I love building things. The excitement of creating solutions and fixing problems still drives me today. However, this builder’s mindset comes with a hidden trap: we often…
Setting the Scene # Cross-timezone collaboration typically involves teams with limited overlapping work hours, often as little as 1-2 hours daily. Outside this window, one or more teams are unavailable due to their local work schedules. This scenario presents unique challenges to effective teamwork. Imagine team collaboration as a game of football or a tango dance – it requires all participants to…
The discussion about monorepos vs multi-repos is a common one among software engineers, especially those who work in platform and developer tools. The question often comes up in the following forms: “Should we merge all our repos into one?” or “Should we split our repos into multiple repos?” It’s not what you think. # Most of the discussions I’ve seen so far…
Introduction # In this article, we will explore the concept of platform engineering and its importance in modern software development organizations. We will discuss the problems it aims to solve, provide a real-world example, and offer some tips on building an effective platform engineering team. A Story Before We Start # Before diving into the topic of platform engineering, let’s consider a…
How many time did you lose your phone that contains all your 2FA ? or your hard disk along with your private keys, ssh or/and gpg? I did, aloooooot and it was excruciating every time, locked from your accounts, it is more likely to lose your phone/disk or have it damaged than your keychain. YubiKey is a physical hardware device, that can save different type of authentication, GPG keys, ssh keys,…