How to think in React
Happy Saturday and welcome back to the newsletter! As always, read on for some of the best software engineering insights, opinions, and news, from Triplebyte’s Compiler blog and around the web.
/From Compiler
The How to think in React (starting with 4 steps)
Building with React requires a different kind of mindset. The freedom it allows means you're not propped up by structure or architecture. There's no fallback of an entire framework to keep you out of spaghetti code trouble. So what does thinking in React look like? This blog lays out four concepts that should help you think clearer when it comes to creating your next React component. read() | share(HN) | share(Twitter)
Modularizing iOS dependencies with ‘integrations’
A problem that comes up for most Xcode projects is the challenge of integrating dependencies. Whether they be Apple frameworks, third-party SDKs, or simple HTTP APIs, it can be a pain to organize and integrate the code you write which makes use of those dependencies. This blog introduces and explains an "integrations" pattern to plug in and unplug dependencies neatly. read() | share(HN) | share(Twitter)
How to craft your elevator pitch as a job seeking software engineer
Sector engineer Camille Eddy describes what she thinks is an effective engineer elevator pitch formula: Get specific on the title you want, the field you want to work in, the discipline you want to specialize in, and the social proof you use to show your “why.” read() | share(HN) | share(Twitter)
//Around the web
?? “Weird new things are happening in software.” In a streamed talk this week, Stanford AI professor Chris Re reflected on how engineer priorities in ML are changing. The industry is suffering from “model-itis,” as he called it, and the smartest of those working in it are shifting focus from working on the next great ML model to the more "fine-grained reasoning and quality" of their applications. He said that “zero-code” deep learning systems like Overton and Ludwig are gaining prevalence, and they have engineers spending their time "monitoring the quality and improving supervision” to enhance the human understanding of the end-resulting software. "Some machine learning teams actually have no engineers writing in those lower-level frameworks like TensorFlow and Pytorch," he added. Check out ZDNet’s coverage of Re’s talk for more. read()
?? In defense of the senior developer who, as far as you can tell, does no work. Are you a junior engineer who feels like you do all the coding while your team lead just points in directions and gets paid more? A blog penned by IBMer Lokajit Tikayatray on GitConnected tries to play peacemaker by explaining the important kinds of things that senior engineers or developers are (typically) kept busy doing and why these jobs are crucial to the success of a software project. “Give the requirement analysis responsibility to a junior developer, and they will be lost. If the team does not understand the requirement, then the project is doomed,” he writes. read()
?? Kotlin + microservices = ?? monolithic codebase. Doordash recently revamped the back-end of its customer checkout experience, and the company was gracious enough to blog all about it. Swapping out its “not performant and … frequently criticized” Python build and bringing in Kotlin, Apache Cassandra, Apache Kafka, Cadence, and gRPC are the TLDR here, but you can check out all the technical details (and benefits) over at Doordash’s blog. read()
?? Inspiration of the week.
//Jobs
Some companies hiring engineers on Triplebyte right now:
- Back-End Software Engineer at Lattice Engines in Silicon Valley
- Senior iOS Engineer at Siden (Remote)
- Growth Engineer at Triplebyte in San Francisco (Work with me!)
- Senior Back-End Engineer at Rescale (Remote)
Check out Triplebyte’s Actively Hiring page to find more companies that are looking for software engineering talent right now!
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