The Pragmatic Engineer

Charity Majors, co-founder and CTO of Honeycomb and observability expert, shares her insights on the evolving landscape of observability. She discusses the concept of Observability 2.0, emphasizing the shift to unified storage and the critical role of platform teams. Charity critiques the overloaded term DevOps, explains the impact of cardinality on observability costs, and highlights how OpenTelemetry mitigates vendor lock-in. She argues for the necessity of strong observability before integrating AI code, making a compelling case for its importance in modern software engineering.

Michael Novati, Co-founder and CTO of Formation and former top code committer at Meta, shares fascinating insights about his journey through Meta’s engineering culture. He discusses the 'coding machine' archetype and its impact on engineering evaluations. Listeners will appreciate his tips for navigating career progression and preparing for technical interviews. Anecdotes about redesigning internal tools and beating Mark Zuckerberg in Risk add a personal touch, making this a must-listen for aspiring tech professionals.

Blake Stockman, a former tech recruiter at Google, Meta, and Uber, now runs his own recruitment agency and studies law. He shares eye-opening insights on the opaque hiring processes at major tech companies. Blake reveals tips on navigating salary negotiations and why candidates shouldn’t disclose salary expectations too early. He discusses the unique dynamics of recruiting for startups versus big tech. Additionally, he emphasizes the power of authentic relationships between recruiters and candidates to improve hiring success.

Sean Goedecke, a Staff Engineer known for his roles at Zendesk and GitHub, shares insights on successfully shipping projects in large tech organizations. He discusses the significance of aligning engineering efforts with business goals and the dual skills needed for project success. The conversation highlights the transformative role of Generative AI in enhancing collaboration among teams, as well as the challenges of balancing developer metrics with customer satisfaction. Sean also emphasizes effective communication and engagement to overcome common project hurdles.

Supported by Our PartnerDX⁠ → DX is an engineering intelligence platform designed by leading researchers—In today’s exciting episode of The Pragmatic Engineer, I am joined by two members of the Notion mobile apps team, Austin Louden and Karn Saheb. Austin and Karn joined Notion in 2019 when Notion was revamping its mobile apps. Notion is a versatile productivity and collaboration platform that combines note-taking, task management, and knowledge organization into a single workspace. It is available as a web app, as well as iOS and Android apps for mobile use.In our conversation today, we take a deep dive into how the Notion mobile team operates and discuss the following: • What the engineering culture is like at Notion • Why the mobile team focuses so much on app performance• The incremental shift from Cordova to Native • Notion’s tech stack and frameworks they rely on • How the mobile team maintains consistency across iOS and Android• Unique features of the development process, including a public beta, using modules, and practices around feature flags• … and much more!—Timestamps(00:00) Intro(02:03) The RFC process at Notion (06:00) How Notion uses internal channels to share RFCs(07:57) Some of the unique ways the mobile team works(11:07) Why they don’t do sprint planning at Notion—and what they do instead(12:57) An overview of the size of Notion and teams at Notion(13:15) The beginning of mobile at Notion(14:40) A simple explanation of Cordova(15:40) Why Notion decided to revamp mobile in 2019 and shift to Native(18:30) How the mobile team evaluated performance as they made the shift to Native(22:00) Scaling mobile and iterations of moving to Native (26:04) Why the home tab project was so complex(30:59) Why the mobile team saved the editor for last and other future problems(34:35) How mobile works with other teams (36:50) How iOS and Android teams work together (38:28) The tech stack at Notion(39:30) How frameworks are used(41:57) Pros and cons of different frameworks and why Swift was the right choice(45:16) How code reviews work at Notion(48:23) Notion’s mobile team’s testing philosophy(50:18) How the mobile team keeps compile time so fast(52:36) Modules in the iOS app(54:50) Modules in the Android app(56:44) Behind the scenes of an app release and the public beta(1:00:34) Practices around feature flags(1:03:00) The four dev environments at Notion(1:04:48) How development apps work (1:07:40) How and why you can work offline in Notion mobile (1:10:24) Austin and Karn’s thoughts on the future of mobile engineering (1:12:47) Advice for junior engineers(1:16:29) Rapid fire round—The Pragmatic Engineer deepdives relevant for this episode:—Where to find Austin Louden:• GitHub: https://github.com/austinlouden• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/austinlouden• Website: https://austinlouden.com/Where to find Karn Saheb:• GitHub: https://github.com/Karn• LinkedIn: https://github.com/Karn• Website: https://karn.ioWhere to find Gergely:• Newsletter: https://www.pragmaticengineer.com/• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/mrgergelyorosz• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gergelyorosz/• X: https://x.com/GergelyOrosz—References and Transcripts:See the transcript and other references from the episode at https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/podcast—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@pragmaticengineer.com. Get full access to The Pragmatic Engineer at newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/subscribe

Grady Booch, Chief Scientist for Software Engineering at IBM, discusses his pioneering role in software development, including his creation of UML and insights into the evolving architecture landscape. He reflects on his decision to decline the Chief Architect position at Microsoft and shares pivotal moments in software history. Grady also dives into the challenges of legacy systems, the rise of large language models, and offers invaluable advice for budding software engineers navigating today's tech environment.

In this conversation, Sabin Roman, the first engineering manager at Linear, shares insights from his journey at Uber to Linear, a dynamic project management platform. He discusses Linear’s shift from email to real-time communication tools for efficiency. Sabin reveals the ‘goalie’ program designed to enhance customer support and the zero bug policy that sets the company apart. The focus on quality over speed and nurturing creativity amidst minimal processes provide a fresh perspective on successful team dynamics in a remote environment.

In this discussion, Irina Stanescu, a seasoned engineer formerly with Google and Uber, shares her insights as an engineering leadership coach. She provides a behind-the-scenes look at Google’s rigorous engineering culture and emphasizes the importance of design documents. Irina offers tactical tips for new engineers on building credibility and advancing careers, detailing her own promotion journey and challenges faced. Additionally, she differentiates between influence and merely having influence, outlining essential skills that engineers need to develop for success in large tech organizations.

Luca Ferrari, the co-founder and CEO of Bending Spoons, leads a profitable tech company known for products like Evernote and Meetup. Alongside Francesco Mancone, the CTO, and Federico Simionato, product lead for Evernote, they discuss their distinctive acquisition strategies. They delve into the controversial process of acquiring tech companies, the simplicity that's integral to their culture, and innovative hiring practices favoring junior talent. The trio also shares insights on engineering transformations, rapid software updates, and maintaining empathy in corporate acquisitions.

Quinn Slack, CEO and co-founder of Sourcegraph, shares his insights on tech scale-ups and the evolution of coding practices. He discusses the shift from location-independent pay to zone-based compensation and the significance of delivering business value for software engineers. Quinn emphasizes his daily coding routine, even in his leadership role. The conversation also covers the integration of AI in software development and its impact on workflow, as well as the complexities of managing software updates in an AI-driven landscape.