See a longer version of this article here: Scaling ChatGPT: Five Real-World Engineering Challenges. Sometimes the best explanations of how a technology solution works come from the software engineers who built it. To explain how ChatGPT (and other large language models) operate, I turned to the ChatGPT engineering team. "How does ChatGPT work, under the hood?" I asked this from Evan Morikawa at OpenAI. Evan joined OpenAI in 2020 – two years before ChatGPT launched – and has led the Applied engineering team as ChatGPT launched and scaled. His team was the one that created ChatGPT, and Evan has ..read more

? Hi, this is Gergely with a bonus, free issue of the Pragmatic Engineer Newsletter. In every issue, I cover topics related to Big Tech and startups through the lens of engineering managers and senior engineers. In this article, we cover one out of four topics from today’s subscriber-only The Pulse issue. To get full issues twice a week, subscribe here. Sella is a mid-sized bank in Italy with around $14B in assets under management. However, Since Sunday (7 April), most of its services are inaccessible. The Sella banking app, the Sella Invest app, and internet banking are all down. Two trading ..read more

I started The Pragmatic Engineer Job Board in October 2021. 2.5 years later, I am shutting it down permanently, despite a reasonable success in traction. The shutdown was triggered by my vendor – Pallet – discontinuing their job board and talent collective approach. However, I might have eventually come to the same decision myself, even without Pallet making this call. In this post, I outline what led here; the results of the job board (and talent collective), and what I learned about the tech jobs market. Context My initial motivation with the job board was to add a kind of "helpful monetiza ..read more

? Hi, this is Gergely with a bonus, free issue of the Pragmatic Engineer Newsletter. In every issue, I cover topics related to Big Tech and startups through the lens of engineering managers and senior engineers. In this article, we cover one out of three topics from last week’s subscriber-only The Pulse issue. Today, full subscribers got access to a comprehensive Senior-and-above tech compensation research. To get full issues twice a week, subscribe here. There’s been a number of news stories about “AI developers,” recently. A first, smaller wave of these stories included Magic.dev raising $1 ..read more

? Hi, this is Gergely with a bonus, free issue of the Pragmatic Engineer Newsletter. In every issue, I cover topics related to Big Tech and startups through the lens of engineering managers and senior engineers. In this article, we cover one out of five topics from today’s subscriber-only article What Changed in 50 Years of Computing. If you’re been forwarded this email, you can subscribe here. ‘The Mythical Man Month’ by Frederick P. Brooks, Jr. is a bona fide classic in the software industry. First published in 1975, and with an updated edition in 1995, the text is almost 50 years old. Lots ..read more

? Hi, this is Gergely with a bonus, free issue of the Pragmatic Engineer Newsletter. In every issue, I cover topics related to Big Tech and startups through the lens of engineering managers and senior engineers. In this article, we cover one out of three topics from today’s subscriber-only The Pulse issue. Subscribe to get issues like this in your inbox, every week. It’s 29th February, a once-every-four-year occurrence. Most people don’t think too much about this extra day in the calendar, but as software engineers, we absolutely should! But first, a few current cases of systems whose develop ..read more

? Hi, this is Gergely with a bonus, free issue of the Pragmatic Engineer Newsletter. In every issue, I cover topics related to Big Tech and startups through the lens of engineering managers and senior engineers. In this article, we cover one out of four topics from today’s subscriber-only The Pulse issue. To get full issues twice a week, subscribe here. In October, we looked into bootstrapped companies founded by software engineers and the article resonated with many readers; I got lots of messages from bootstrapped founders following that issue. Many messages were complaints about something ..read more

2023 was the second full year of The Pragmatic Engineer Newsletter, and this newsletter is now almost two and a half years old; the first issue came out on 26 August 2021. Thank you for being a reader, I greatly value your support. This year, 102 newsletter issues were published, and this is number 103. You received a deepdive issue on Tuesdays, and every Thursday it was “The Pulse” – formerly The Scoop. Occasionally, there was a bonus article on Wednesdays, too, such as about the book, Tidy First? Like last year, these newsletters all add up to 5-7 books’ worth of informa ..read more

I get asked every now and then if I offer 1:1 mentoring for either software engineers or engineering managers or leaders. While I used to do this in the past, I don't offer this any more. I collected much of the advice I have to offer for software engineers in The Software Engineer's Guidebook. I also write The Pragmatic Engineer Newsletter where I do cover topics like what it means to be a senior engineer at various companies, how to deal with a low-quality engineering culture, and other topics. I do believe great mentors are useful for professional growth, and have benefitted both informal a ..read more

For 3 years straight, the DevTernity conference listed non-existent software engineers representing Coinbase and Meta as featured speakers. When were they added and what could have the motivation been? Three featured speakers listed at DevTernity 2021, 2022 and 2023, and JDKon 2024. These people do not exist. A year ago, I spent months doing an investigative report on how UK events tech company Pollen had its staff work for free, as it had run out of money but still kept operating. The company kept promising that missing wages would arrive – but they never did. Not only that, but the company ..read more