Returning to work after a holiday feels similar to going from home to school after a fun break. It's good in the long run, but also serves as a reminder to appreciate the little joys of life.
My dearest reader, I hope your week has gone smoothly, that the sun has been shining at just the right angle for your photos, and that your delicacies are at the perfect temperature you desire.
On to this week’s issue, we start off with How Do You Know If You’re a Good Leader? by Mike Fisher. Mike argues that one of the hardest performance reviews is the one that we give ourselves, clouded by personal bias. He suggests that true leadership quality isn’t measured by a single metric but by the team's health and autonomy. An indicator of good leaders is the ability to create an environment where the team can thrive and make decisions independently. The growth and success of the people you lead, rather than your own individual accomplishment, is the defining measure of being a good leader.
Software Engineering Splits in Three: AI is splitting the bottleneck of software development from implementation to judgment, which has led to a tripartition of the ecosystem. The first tier comprises digital-native tech giants, where AI acts as a force multiplier for engineers with deep architectural knowledge to vet AI-generated code at scale. The second tier is enterprises like banks that are non-tech and lack the talent of big tech, and rely on platforms that need built-in guardrails to ensure safety. The third tier is the small businesses that do not need traditional engineering teams. The value of the profession of writing code will reside in the high-level decision-making and accountability required to ensure the systems are correct and resilient.
Why VS Code Is Still My Go-To IDE (After Trying Everything Else)
What Really Makes a Successful Software Engineer: Being a great engineer is more about solving the right problems in the simplest way possible through foundational skills like patience, determination, accepting criticism, communication, and a student mindset to keep pace with change.
The Most Painful Career Lesson My Best Job Taught Me: Professional success should not just be measured by comfort or salary, but by continuous learning and alignment with one’s long-term goals.
The AI Industry Is Lying To You: There is a discrepancy between soaring GPU sales and absorption into functional data centers which means only a small number of projects are under active construction. The industry is hitting a wall where a lack of power grid infrastructure and realistic construction timelines make the promised multi-gigawatt AI campuses impossible to deliver in the near term.
Don’t trust, verify: The security of software shouldn’t rest on the reputation of its developers but on the ability of users to verify its integrity. By providing tools for independent users to verify that releases match the source code, you ensure that any potential breach can be caught by the community, and this level of verification should be a requirement for all critical software dependencies.
The word of the day is verdant. Verdant describes a person who is inexperienced and lacks seasoned judgment.
Example in a sentence:
Though he had a brilliant mind for theory, the verdant young intern struggled with the firm's fast-paced office politics.
I am making my grand departure into the unknown.
Take care of yourself!
Until the next fortnight, my treasured reader, go forth, and may the odds be ever in your favour! 👏 🤖 ✊ ☠️ 🏹 🪖
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