Eitan Konigsburg

🏎️💨 Making of a Ridiculously Fast™ API client in R. Why my package is **~17x faster** than the community alternatives that call the **exact same API endpoints**. 👇🏽**design choices matter** ✨ https://lnkd.in/ggi_2XyQ

129

2 Comments

Some updates to my #FeatureFlags demo app (https://lnkd.in/eQd23gfU) - I've added an "Explain" view that outlines why a particular variant was chosen (based on the current context and rules). This is a companion piece to my feature flags book (read it at https://lnkd.in/ehxiy6bY).

10

Developer downtime: don’t overwork your devs. It’s memorial weekend and I’m lazily sitting on my porch. My kids keep coming in and out of the house, but get stuck because the sliding door keeps coming off the rails and won’t open. Well, since I’ve got nothing else scheduled for the afternoon I investigate the issue. Turns out sliding doors have a bunch of adjustment screws. I adjust them till the door slides smooth. Left in the broken state my kids learned to hit top left side of the door before opening it. Bringing this back to work, I know customer success teams that have a cheat sheet of these maneuvers. Give devs space to observe, we naturally fix these issues.

15

1 Comment

I can’t find it now but our team not long ago had a good laugh at a cartoon panel about a software engineer so exasperated at some syntax heavy quasi-code (Terraform, Webpack, Redux?), they quit and took up wood carving. It was our little joke in the Slacks for a minute. Now that the universe has blessed us with an opportunity for reflection (mass lay-offs), we might revisit that theme a bit more seriously. What does a set of wood chisels cost, anyway? I have been consistently surprised, over a couple decades of interviewing software engineering candidates, at how many are unable to demonstrate real interest in the field. Oh sure, there are platitudes; there’s the performative stuff that is the lifeblood of LinkedIn. But there’s less evidence of internally motivated, quiet, continuous self-improvement. What (software engineering things) did you do in the months since you left your last job? What new things are you currently exploring in the field? If the answer is “nothing,” congratulations, you sound like a normal person. But maybe it also means this is an opportunity to realign if not pivot to find what does spark curiosity for you, what you would love exploring. Maybe more UX programming; or more algorithmic. Few things will make your next job more enjoyable than having enthusiasm for the work.

19

3 Comments

Do you think you need to hire developers as w2 employees to build a highly-skilled, devoted and culturally aligned team? Let Blueprint show you otherwise. Here's how we're changing the game: 1️⃣ Unmatched Quality: Quality is our creed. Our vetting process includes interviewing with former CTOs and senior software engineers, ensuring only top-tier talent makes it to your team. 2️⃣ Long-Term Commitment: Forget the turnover and churn worries! Our developers stay longer than industry norms for W2 developers (average tenure of 2.2 years), providing stability and continued expertise to your projects. 3️⃣ Cultural Integration: Culture isn't just an add-on for us. We dive deep to understand your core values and ensure every developer we match with your team enhances and embraces your company culture. 4️⃣ Equity is Optional: Save your cap table for your growing startup! We ensure that our developers are passionate believers in your product right from the start - without incentivizing them with equity. We rigorously test for craftsmanship, ensuring they value not just a quality end result but also the journey of creation. 🌟 Shoot us a DM to connect and see how we can improve your staffing strategy. #StaffAugmentation #InnovationInStaffing #TechTalent #CultureFit #LongTermGrowth

20

1 Comment

Anybody who is going through code interviews knows to manually test and find bugs. The fundamental problem is to KEEP YOUR SH*T TOGETHER when you find a bug. Don't overindex on the exciting joy/embarrassment of finding the bug. In fact, if you've found one, there are likely more. Keep a cool head, reset yourself emotionally, and start your testing FROM SCRATCH and find them. And most importantly... keep it cool. #codinginterviews #coding #crackTheCodingInterview

3

In other news today, Delta Lake UniForm is now Generally Available. No more data silos, interoperability FTW! UniForm allows you to use a single table format for your lakehouse, getting the top-of-the-line performance and features of Databricks and Delta Lake, but being able to access the data using *any* engine that supports *any* of the common lakehouse formats Delta Lake, Iceberg, or Hudi.

45

Hey #DevRel and #Community peeps: while it's still uncertain if I'll be at #devrelcon, I would like to pass on a discount code that could hopefully make it easier for you to attend. It looks like a lot of really good content, with more practical and actionable content than I've seen in years, so hopefully you'll be able to attend! And maybe I'll see you there too! https://lnkd.in/gCakgrMb

23

Level up your React apps with the power of deferred values! This past week, I teamed up with an epic crew of rockstars for a project that's been an absolute blast! While my partner in crime, Alexander Lay, wrangles the backend with C# in the .NET framework, I dove headfirst into the React.JS frontier. My React skills are exploding faster than a supernova, and guess what awesome feature I stumbled upon? Deferred values! Think of deferred values as giving your app the ultimate multitasking superpower. When you defer a value, it lets your app prioritise the most critical updates, keeping things smooth and responsive. Here's the magic: Imagine a user typing furiously in a search box. With deferred values, the UI stays silky smooth. Instead of tripping over every keystroke, the app tackles high-priority stuff first, like rendering the screen, then chills in the background processing the search. This keeps the user happy with a lag-free experience (no more jumpy searches!). But wait, there's more! Deferred values become the ultimate performance dream team when paired with cleanup functions. ‍♀️ Cleanup functions are like tiny ninjas that swoop in when a component disappears, cancelling any unfinished tasks. This prevents memory leaks and stops updates to components that are no longer there. Imagine a user zipping away from the search page – the cleanup function swoops in, gracefully cancelling any lingering searches, keeping everything running like a well-oiled machine. ️ Without cleanup functions, it's like trying to update a state that vanished – a recipe for disaster! This project has been a treasure trove of front-end development knowledge, and I'm stoked about the progress we've made. My journey might just inspire you on your coding adventures too! Remember, deferred values and proper cleanup are your best buds for building efficient and rock-solid applications. Read this article for more information on Deffered Values: https://lnkd.in/etgPkK8W #ReactJS #FrontendDevelopment #JavaScript #WebDevelopment #LearningJourney #DeferredValues #CleanUpFunctions #PerformanceOptimization

10

During my time at LoopQA, I've found that an effective model for leveraging automation involves a clear division of responsibilities between development and QA teams. I'll caveat this by saying, I generally advocate for developers to refactor the automation they break, but the reality is that most organizations aren't willing to invest their time into it. Hence, having a dedicated QA team for E2E tests often proves more practical. Here's a typical and highly functional workflow: Local Development: -Developers work on their local environments. -They run unit tests and integration tests to ensure their code is functioning as expected. Dev/Test Environment: -Code is merged into a shared Dev/Test environment. -Unit/Integration Tests: These tests must pass before any merge can occur. If they fail, the merge fails. -E2E Sanity Tests: These are also run, but they can fail for both valid and invalid reasons. Developers need to be adept at identifying actual bugs versus new legitimate failures. -Automation teams step in to refactor failing E2E tests to ensure stability. A common problem here is when dev teams opt not to refactor failing tests, leading to false negatives and potential issues down the line. Stage/Pre-Prod Environment: -After passing all tests, the code moves to the Stage/Pre-Prod environment. -Any merge to this environment is contingent on passing E2E tests along with unit and integration tests. Production Environment -Finally, the tested and validated code is merged into the Production environment. Key Insights: -This model ensures that unit/integration tests act as crucial gatekeepers, providing immediate feedback to developers. -E2E tests, maintained by the QA team, ensure overall system validation and highlight integration issues early. -Collaboration and clear division of responsibilities between dev and QA teams maximize the value of automation, leading to robust and reliable code delivery. #SoftwareDevelopment #QA #Testing #DevOps #SoftwareQuality #Automation #ContinuousIntegration #ContinuousDeployment

47

9 Comments

Had a chat with Eric Meyer and Brian Kardell about CSS masonry, does it belong in the grid spec or not? With a bit of a discussion about how and why we ask for developer feedback on CSS. https://lnkd.in/d3C-_dwq #css

33

I put on my interviewer's hat 🧢 today to join Brian Norton on a technical interview at Chameleon. It wasn't my first time interviewing - I had quite a few experiences before, the first time ~8 years ago when I was just a jr. 🐣 developer; although every interview is a new experience. My knowledge as an interviewer is primarily empirical (both as an interviewer but also being on the other side way more times), but one thing I learned in a DEVNAESTRADA podcast episode a few years back stuck with me to this day: "As an interviewer, I want to make the person I'm talking to as comfortable as possible to show their strengths. After all, we have the same shared goal (of this being a successful hire): hopefully, that will be the candidate to make it". -- I quote Antonio Marin Neto 👾 (loosely, as far as my memory is capable of 🙈, but you get the idea). 💡 This was an enormously useful insight I have tried to exercise since then when interviewing. (thanks, Neto + Eduardo Matos!) Way easier said than done, I recognize. Hopefully, I was able to get it done today though! 🐥

31

2 Comments

Thank you to Jason Lengstorf for talking with me at CityJS Conferences about reducing stress for #softwareengineers, and sharing practical tips for advancing a coding career. + Get a sneak peek at "Web Lunch", Jason's latest series. Link down below!👇

10

1 Comment

I believe that when people lament about tech debt, it's a misdirected complaint. Engineering teams will always be producing some amount of technical "debt." Even if we write beautiful, well-tested code that fits some noble architectural paradigm and meets every standard we can come up with, it is guaranteed to be deficient in some way--either now or to the team's (or our own personal) future views on what constitutes good code. When we write code, we come to some consensus as a team around what approaches we generally accept and what trade-offs we are generally willing to tolerate. And that's completely normal and unavoidable. But when we complain about tech debt, what we are actually complaining about is a deficient process. All software teams need to have dedicated time to revise our work. Far too often, we prioritize feature development over all other things. The end results of that deficient process are, invariably, twofold: a product with shiny new bells and whistles and a sea of spaghetti under the hood; and a team of stressed out engineers who have to work in a messy, frustrating codebase every single day.

19

11 Comments

Isn’t it funny that 60% of engineering managers see a shortage of qualified candidates while 56% plan to increase headcount? The math is not mathin’. 🧮 Maybe it’s time to rethink what makes a “good engineer”. Skills are evolving with AI and machine learning, and our criteria needs to evolve too. The “passion engineer” coding all night is rare now, and that’s okay — maybe even better — because we can introduce more diverse skill sets, experiences, and problem-solving. Let’s evaluate our talent definitions, invest in training, and embrace diverse paths of excellence. ✨ For more insights like these, check out Jellyfish's 2024 State of Engineering Management report: https://lnkd.in/eKAJ5jZy

5

It took 4 or 5 years longer than I originally predicted, but no-code's promise to non-technical founders is here. It looks different than I thought... instead of founders building products themselves for free, they're using agencies and freelancers and just paying less. I'm getting more and more leads from founders who originally got expensive quotes from dev shops. We end up doing the job for ~1/5 cost and sometimes 1/10 time. I launched a web app for a client last month. We built it in two weeks, without code. It already has over 100 paying customers. Real, profitable businesses are being built by leveraging experienced no-code builders! 5 years ago I went all in and converted my solo consultancy to a full no-code shop. It's finally paying off 😂. If you'd like to build something and hiring devs has been prohibitive, consider the no-code route. I'm happy to talk anytime!

12

I think many people in the software industry make the mistake of viewing tech debt like a loan in deferral. They decide to add to their debt assuming there is no short term cost, but one day they will have to start paying it down (or declare bankruptcy with a huge rewrite). A more accurate analogy would compare your tech debt to credit card debt. You immediately start paying for this debt. The minimum payment would barely chip away at the interest accruing. You pay that cost in your project with every feature. The tech debt you add today makes the feature you add tomorrow more difficult. Every work item you take on without addressing the debt will be more difficult, and will likely add to the debt itself. With both analogies, a common end result is crippling debt that grinds your progress to a halt. However, the former analogy assumes that you are making quick progress, when that simply isn't the case. "The only way to go fast, is to go well." - Robert C. Martin

14