/Management

So You Want To Build End-To-End Tests

- Rebecca Stone tl;dr: A well-built test suite runs faster, gives more reliable results, and makes long-term maintenance easier and cheaper. After thousands and thousands of end-to-end tests, QA Wolf has picked up a few tricks to build fast, stable, and accurate ones. This guide teaches you how.

featured in #414

Best Career Advice

- Mike Fisher tl;dr: "I try to speak with a former colleague or acquaintance at least once per week... The benefit of this for me is the social aspect of catching up with an old friend and sharing some memories and some laughs. It is also a big benefit to me to hear what is happening in their industry or field. In this way I learn about emerging trends, hot topics, areas of concern, and opportunities." Mike discusses how this has helped his career. 

featured in #413

Monoliths Are Not Dinosaurs

- Werner Vogels tl;dr: "I always urge builders to consider the evolution of their systems over time and make sure the foundation is such that you can change and expand them with the minimum number of dependencies." Werner discusses being less dogmatic about architecture allowing it to evolve with its needs. 

featured in #413

Boost Your Team's Productivity With Postman Workspaces

tl;dr: API collaboration is essential for driving development efforts forward. Postman Workspaces help teams streamline the process, ensuring APIs are consistently available, highly performant, and meet consumer needs. Discover how to collaborate effectively at every stage of the API lifecycle in an API-first world.

featured in #413

Measuring Flow And Focus

- Abi Noda tl;dr: Based on a study with Google engineers, the best predictor of flow is “focus time:” performing a number of similar actions in a given window of time. Researchers also identified 3 practices for facilitating flow: (1) Schedule management. (2) Goal setting so engineers are working on tasks that feel fulfilling. (3) Giving time to “get into flow.”

featured in #412

Interviewing Engineering Executives

- Will Larson tl;dr: The topics that Will explores are: (1) Avoiding the unicorn search. (2) How interviewing executives goes wrong. (3) Structuring your evaluation process. (4) Focusing on four areas to evaluate engineering executives.

featured in #412

Benefits Of API Collaboration In An API-First World

tl;dr: Collaboration is the key to successful API development. Whether it's working with internal teams or external partners, effective collaboration can help teams work faster, smarter, and with fewer errors. In this article, we explore the best practices for API collaboration and offer tips for working more effectively across the entire API lifecycle.

featured in #412

Uptime Guarantees — A Pragmatic Perspective

- Itzy Sabo tl;dr: “The cost of building and operating a system in a way that guarantees 99.99% uptime is several times as expensive as 99.5%. This is in terms of system complexity, the number of engineers required, their specialisations, experience levels, and corresponding salaries, as well as significantly increased operational costs and arrangements.”

featured in #412

Contrafreeloading

- Mike Fisher tl;dr: “Most people want to work for their rewards. Promotions received after striving for it for years are the ones people are most proud of.” Mike illustrates how humans don’t want free rewards. He believes the three grand essentials of happiness - “something to do, someone to love, and something to hope for" is a valuable framework to manage your own or someone else’s career.

featured in #411

Rules Of Thumb For Software Development Estimations

- Vadim Kravcenko tl;dr: “Who am I to tell you how to estimate projects? I can only give you some pointers and describe some things that worked well for me over the years. So that’s exactly what I will do — give you some rules of thumb to make your life easier.”

featured in #411