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SPONSOR - Leverage Moves Upstream: The Infrastructure Layer Reshaping Product Teams

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Nine out of ten engineering teams adopted AI for delivery. One in three actually believe they're ready to hand work off to it.
That gap isn't a tooling problem. When production becomes cheap, the constraint doesn't stay there - it moves upstream.
Inside the guide:

Staying On The Path To High Performing Teams

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

— Will Larson

tl;dr: “When you talk about growing an organization, the conversation usually leads to hiring. While I believe hiring is a very important approach to growing organizations, I believe we reach for it too often. In order to prioritize hiring for scenarios where it’ll do the most good, over the past year I’ve developed a loose framework for reasoning about what a given team needs to increase performance.”

Five Studies Changing How I Think About AI In Software Engineering

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

— Brian Houck

tl;dr: “Each paper tackles a different question. Some measure the productivity impact of AI coding assistants. Others examine how those gains propagate through the software delivery process, explore what developers actually want from future AI systems, or reconsider the kinds of debt we should be paying attention to in an AI-assisted world. Despite coming from different research groups and using very different methodologies, they all seem to be converging on the same underlying story.”

Leverage Moves Upstream: The Infrastructure Layer Reshaping Product Teams

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

tl;dr: Nine out of ten engineering teams adopted AI for delivery. One in three actually believe they're ready to hand work off to it. That gap isn't a tooling problem. When production becomes cheap, the constraint doesn't stay there - it moves upstream. Inside the guide: (1) Why the assumption Agile was built on no longer holds with AI in the loop. (2) How leverage is reshaping at every level - from product leaders to managers to engineers. (3) The "Handoff Test" - how to measure if your org runs on conversations or Product Knowledge. (4) Why this is infrastructure, not documentation, and why that distinction actually matters.
Promoted by Atono

5 Things World-Class Engineers Do That You Don't

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

— Steve Huynh

tl;dr: “After participating in many such conversations, both through my podcast and during my time at Amazon, I have recognized a handful of patterns that have held over the decades and across different companies. What follows is my running list of those patterns, the ones that keep surfacing whenever I sit down with someone elite. There are five of them, and I explain the gap between what they do and where most other people stop.”

Why AI Hasn’t Replaced Software Engineers, And Won’t

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

— Arvind Narayanan, Sayash Kapoor

tl;dr: “In this essay, we argue that there is enough evidence to reject the narrative that once AI capabilities reach a certain threshold, it will cause mass layoffs. Given that this is true even in a sector with very few regulatory barriers, most other professions are likely to be even more cushioned.”

WorkOS Pipes: Connect The Tools Your Users Already Use

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

tl;dr: Every integration gives your product more context, and most of it lives in your users' other apps like GitHub, Slack, Google, and Salesforce. Pipes connects them. Users authorize once through a drop-in widget, one call returns a valid, scoped token, and credentials stay off your stack. The more context your agents can reach, the more useful your product becomes.
Promoted by WorkOS

When AI Costs More Than The Engineer

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

— Tomasz Tunguz

tl;dr: “Anthropic spends 2.3x its payroll on compute — $515k per engineer per year at today's $224k fully-loaded salary. The top 1% of software companies spend $89k, the median $137. Three 2029 scenarios bracket how that gap closes.”

On Data Quality

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

— Abraham Thomas

tl;dr: “Data quality. We love it, we want it, we praise it, we aspire to it. Even in these benighted and degenerate times, if there’s one belief that unites all sensible individuals, it is the belief that data quality is a Good Thing. It’s a pity, then, that nobody seems to know what data quality is.”

A Software Architecture Reading List

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

— Dr Andrew Leigh

tl;dr: “Dr Andrew Leigh reflects on 25 years of professional experience as a software architect and offers his insights and a reading list of recommendations.”

SPONSOR - Free Gauntlet AI Night School:

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Online Wednesday July 15 at 5CT
Byron Mackay breaks down the Gauntlet learning model and argues that the environment beats the curriculum, explaining what makes it unlike college or a coding camp, and how immersing top engineers in a single topic in Austin drives growth that online courses cannot replicate.
You'll learn:

In Job Interviews, Keep Your Backstory Short

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

— Wes Kao

tl;dr: “The problem is, when you spend too much time describing the situation (i.e. the context or background), you take time away from the other parts of STAR, all of which are more interesting and relevant. The situation should be a brief set up, so you can let the other parts of your STAR story really shine.”

Ownership

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

— Thorsten Ball

tl;dr: “Just had a (great) conversation about ownership and engineering here and I realized that I often use the phrase “ownership” or allude to it, but haven’t explained what “ownership” means to me in a while.”

Free Gauntlet AI Night School: Why the Environment Matters More Than the Curriculum

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

tl;dr: Online Wednesday July 15 at 5CT. Byron Mackay breaks down the Gauntlet learning model and argues that the environment beats the curriculum, explaining what makes it unlike college or a coding camp, and how immersing top engineers in a single topic in Austin drives growth that online courses cannot replicate. You'll learn: (1) Why the learning environment matters more than the curriculum. (2) What separates Gauntlet from college, bootcamps, and online courses. (3) How immersion in one topic accelerates real skill development. (4) What training engineers to work AI-first at scale looks like.
Promoted by Gauntlet

The Mario Meeting

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

— Michael Lopp

tl;dr: “Everyone cares about the compensation (base salary, bonus, and stock). That’s the data they care about, but where did this pile of compensation come from? Who decided how big it is? And how is it allocated? It is a long, complicated, and large process that began over a year ago. And as a Senior Leader, it’s your job to figure it out.”

Software Engineering At The Tipping Point

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

— Adam Bender

tl;dr: Adam explores software ecology as a framework for understanding sociotechnical systems. By examining the impact of emerging technologies and rapid growth on developer ecosystems, he investigates how culture and technical choices navigate the challenges of scaling environments.

How A 3,000-Person Company Got 95% Of Its Employees Using AI Every Week

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

— Kaia Colban

tl;dr: We sat down with their AI Platform Manager, who walked us through the three-layer skills system behind it: company, team, and personal skills that stay versioned and cascade down. Steal the structure for your own org.
Promoted by Lore

Software Design In The Agentic Age: Place Your Bets

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

— Mathias Verraes

tl;dr: “This week, I participated in Thoughtworks’ Future of Software Engineering retreat in Engelberg, Switzerland. It was an invite-only event with about 60 industry leaders, hosted by Martin Fowler. The event used an open space format, where all sessions had the form of group debates, mostly focused on agentic development. Here are some of my observations on the changing role of software design.”

How to Make Architecture Decisions: RFCs, ADRs, and Getting Everyone Aligned

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

— Lukas Niessen

tl;dr: “The thing is, architecture decisions are different from regular code decisions. They’re harder to reverse, they affect more people, and they often involve trade-offs that aren’t purely technical. You need buy-in. You need the right people in the room. And you need a process that doesn’t turn into endless meetings or bikeshedding. Here’s the approach I’ve found works well, both in my consulting work and in teams I’ve led.”

Cost Attribution In Discord’s API

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

— Jim Benton

tl;dr: “One observability gap that we wanted to improve last year was our understanding of how hosting costs were allocated across product features. For example, how much does it cost to operate the parts of API that are used to send and receive messages? Start a stream? Send a friend a Nitro gift?”