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There are a growing number of AI coding tools that are alternatives to Copilot. A list of other popular, promising options. Originally published 16 May 2023. There are plenty of tools to choose from aside from Copilot and ChatGPT. Here are the most promising ones worth checking out, with an emphasis on those with self-hosting as an option. Date of launch is in brackets: Tabnine (2019)GitHub Copilo

RFCs - requests for comment - or Design Docs are a common tool that engineering teams use to build software faster, by clarifying assumptions and circulating plans earlier. There are some similarities between writing automated tests for your code, and writing RFCs before you start working on a non-trivial project: Software engineers who write tests for their code - and ask for code reviews on it -

Writing is an increasingly important skill for engineering leaders. Indeed, poor writing can hamper career progression, above a certain level. Tactics for more clear, more frequent and more confident writing. I’ve observed that my writing is not up to par with my peers. How can I improve my professional writing, as someone working in tech?I get this question from many people: senior engineers who

Books perfect as reading or gifts during the end-of-year break for those working in tech. More than 100 book recommendations. I’ve always found books are an underrated way to learn something new. Great books contain years of hard-earned experiences compressed into what you can read in hours. However, you do need to give hours-long attention to them. This allows books to convey ideas that shorter-f

Project management is a topic most people have strong opinions on, and I’m no exception. To answer the question of how different companies run engineering projects, I pulled in help from across the industry. In this issue we’ll cover: Project management approaches across the industry. An overview of a survey with over 100 companies represented, plus key takeaways.Project management at Big Tech. Ho

A growing number of startups and Big Tech companies offer equity - stocks, options, and others - as part of software engineering compensation. However, I've noticed few engineers understand what these mean. When I was a hiring manager at Uber in Amsterdam, engineers usually focused far more on the base salary, taking little interest in equity. Several people only realized much later - sometimes at

I've worked at various tech companies: from "traditional" shops and consultancies, through an investment bank, to high-growth tech firms. I've also talked with software engineers working at startups, banking, automotive, big tech, and more "traditional" companies. This mix had a healthy sample of Silicon-Valley companies and ones headquartered outside this region. I've noticed that Silicon Valley

Do you actually use data structures and algorithms on your day to day job? I've noticed a growing trend of people assuming algorithms are pointless questions that are asked by tech companies purely as an arbitrary measure. I hear more people complain about how all of this is a purely academic exercise. This notion was definitely popularized after Max Howell, the author of Homebrew, posted his Goog

I had my fair share in designing and building large systems. I've taken part in rewriting Uber's distributed payment systems, designing and shipping Skype on Xbox One and open-sourcing RIBs, Uber's mobile architecture framework. All of these systems had thorough designs, going through multiple iterations and had lots of whiteboarding and discussion. The designs then boiled down to a design documen

For the past few years, I've been building and operating a large distributed system: the payments system at Uber. I've learned a lot about distributed architecture concepts during this time and seen first-hand how high-load and high-availability systems are challenging not just to build, but to operate as well. Building the system itself is a fun job. Planning how the system will handle 10x/100x t

When building a large scale, highly available and distributed system, what architecture concepts do you need to use, in practice? In this post, I am summarizing ones I have found essential to learn and apply when building the payments system that powers Uber. This is a system with a load of up to thousands of requests per second, where critical payments functionality needs to work correctly, even