As a seasoned full-stack developer, I‘ve lost count of how many GitHub repositories I‘ve used over the years. Open-source libraries are the lifeblood of modern software development, allowing us to build complex applications faster than ever before. However, for every well-maintained and documented project, there are countless others that are buggy, neglected, and utterly unusable….
As a full-stack developer with years of experience under my belt, I‘ve seen firsthand how rapidly the tech landscape can shift. Cutting-edge frameworks and best practices continuously evolve. Amidst all this change, one thing has become crystal clear to me: the developers who thrive are the ones who cultivate the skills to learn and adapt…
As a full-stack developer and professional coder, I‘ve seen firsthand how the API landscape has evolved over the years. From SOAP to REST, and now to GraphQL, each new technology has brought improvements and addressed limitations of its predecessors. In this article, I‘ll dive deep into why I believe GraphQL represents the future of APIs,…
As a seasoned full-stack developer with over a decade of experience, I‘ve seen firsthand how critical good documentation is to the success of any software project. Industry research backs this up: a study by the University of Cambridge found that well-documented code is 56% less likely to contain bugs than undocumented code. Another survey by…
As a software engineer, you may be tempted to focus solely on the technical aspects of a potential job—the tech stack, the product, the compensation. But there‘s another critical factor that will shape your day-to-day experience and long-term career growth even more: the company culture. What exactly is company culture? It‘s the set of values,…
As a software developer, one of the most important things you can do to advance your career is to continually learn new programming languages. But with so many languages out there, it can be difficult to decide which one to focus on next. In this post, I‘ll break down the most valuable languages to learn…
Choosing which programming languages to learn is one of the most important decisions you‘ll make as an aspiring data scientist. The languages you know will shape what tools and frameworks you can use, what companies you can work for, the types of analyses you can do, and more. There‘s no one "best" language for data…
As programmers, we spend a huge portion of our time solving problems. According to a 2021 survey by Stack Overflow, the average developer spends over 50% of their work week debugging, refactoring, and writing new code[^1]. With so much of our professional lives devoted to working through coding challenges, it‘s critical that we maximize the…
As a full-stack developer who has worked across multiple technology platforms over the past decade, I‘ve had the privilege of interacting with exceptional developer advocates who have shaped my skills and career. But I‘ll admit, the first time I heard the title "Developer Advocate", I was puzzled. What the heck is a developer advocate? Are…
When we think about the skills that make a great developer, technical mastery of programming languages, frameworks, and tools usually comes to mind first. And while there‘s no denying that rock-solid coding chops are essential, they‘re only one part of the equation. Equally important, although often overlooked and undervalued, are the "soft skills" – those…
Apache Kafka has taken the world of data infrastructure by storm. Originally developed at LinkedIn and open sourced in 2011, Kafka is now used by over 80% of the Fortune 100 for everything from collecting user activity data and logs to building real-time data pipelines and streaming applications. There are many reasons for Kafka‘s meteoric…
Six months ago, I embarked on an exciting new chapter in my life as I started my first job as a self-taught software engineer. The journey to this point was filled with countless hours of coding, learning, and perseverance. In this blog post, I want to share my experiences, challenges, and lessons learned during these…