Swizec Teller is a software engineer, speaker, and educator sharing lessons from his journey from junior developer to Silicon Valley. He writes about engineering skills, career growth, mindset, and practical tactics for succeeding in tech.
58 articles from this blog
AI makes work feel productive but not finished; focus on user outcomes over artifacts.
Analysis of how engineering career levels have shifted from skill progression to a focus on scope ownership and hiring expectations.
A developer shares a workflow trick: using AI bots to fix code in pull requests instead of leaving comments, speeding up reviews and shipping code faster.
Explores how AI impacts software engineers' roles, focusing on mental load and the value of ownership.
Explores building AI agents using RAG, tool calling, and memory, with practical insights from a key paper and Anthropic's SDK.
Article discusses the importance of using evals to measure AI improvements when adding AI skills to your resume.
A developer shares how AI now writes 97% of their production code, detailing workflow changes and lessons learned from using Cursor agents.
A blog post advocating for reading academic papers as a key learning method in tech, sharing personal experiences and tips.
How watching users work helps engineers build better software by identifying pain points and automating fixes.
Turning frustration into productivity by automating repetitive tasks, removing work, and solving problems permanently in software engineering.
Article discusses hiring software engineers in the AI era, focusing on practical interview techniques beyond LeetCode.
A critique of over-engineering and AI hype, emphasizing that real engineering value lies in shipping working code and delivering user outcomes.
A software engineer discusses managing chaos, interruptions, and operational fires while building long-term solutions and effective engineering habits.
Advice for tech professionals on emphasizing scope and impact over job titles on resumes to stand out in hiring.
A software engineer reflects on the importance of mentoring and delegating to avoid becoming trapped in a critical role, advocating to 'code yourself out of the job'.
Explains the three key growth curves—exponential, linear, and logarithmic—that define a scalable software business and an engineer's role in building long-term assets.
Explains how stacked pull requests can speed up development by enabling parallel work and avoiding large, hard-to-review PRs.
Explores the reality of managing legacy code and continuous migration in production software, emphasizing adaptability over perfect design.
Argues that the future of software engineering lies in Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) and operational excellence, not just writing code.
A developer shares advice on navigating a tough tech job market by building real projects, freelancing, or joining startups to create opportunities.
