The hottest Engineering Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
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What Big Eyes You Have

Postcards From Barsoom • 4302 implied HN points • 23 Oct 24
🔬 Science Engineering
  1. A huge telescope called the 'Monster Telescope' is proposed to help us see and study exoplanets better. It's designed to be one kilometer wide, allowing us to take detailed pictures of other planets in different star systems.
  2. Even though the Monster Telescope has some limitations, like not being able to see very far or clearly, it can help scientists gather data about exoplanets much more effectively than current telescopes.
  3. There's excitement around building advanced telescopes that can operate in space, and ideas like the 'Luciola hypertelescope' suggest we could even create large arrays of flying mirrors to enhance our ability to observe the universe.

Don't Accomplish Everything

Software Design: Tidy First? • 1369 implied HN points • 23 Feb 26
đź•ą Technology Engineering
  1. Work runs in three modes — Explore, Expand, and Extract — and each mode has different goals and tradeoffs, so manage projects differently as they move between them.
  2. In Explore mode, set bold, learning-focused goals and expect to hit roughly half of them (P50); finding surprising value is more important than finishing every planned task.
  3. Keep explorations as independent as possible because they’re fragile and delay-sensitive, while extraction accepts dependencies and demands reliability, so structure teams and processes to match the phase.

Vibes is all you need

Alex Ghiculescu's Newsletter • 203 implied HN points • 19 Mar 26
đź•ą Technology Engineering
  1. Modern AI can write, test, and interact with your app autonomously, which removes many traditional engineering bottlenecks. This shifts the product vs engineering balance and pushes lead engineers to focus on shipping end-to-end and building the right architecture.
  2. To adopt this, try the tools on real bugs, run hackathons to show what’s possible, give everyone access to AI coding tools, and set an AI budget so teams don’t hesitate to use them. These practical steps lower friction and expand what people will attempt.
  3. Rethink product strategy and jobs-to-be-done: use AI to tackle ideas that felt too hard, cure writer’s block, and automate tedious gruntwork. Aim to build features that fully solve customers’ jobs rather than just incremental pieces.

222. Automating Processes with Software is HARD

Hardcore Software • 1686 implied HN points • 03 Oct 24
đź•ą Technology Engineering
  1. Automating processes is often harder than people think. It's not just about making things easier, but figuring out how to handle all the unexpected situations that come up.
  2. Most automation systems are fragile and can easily break if inputs or steps aren't just right. This makes dealing with exceptions, rather than routine tasks, the real challenge in automation.
  3. The future of automation might not be about fixing the tasks we already have. Instead, it could lead to new ways of doing things that we haven't thought of yet.

Readers Questions

Soviet Space Substack • 79 implied HN points • 27 Oct 24
đź’ľ History Engineering
  1. The Soviet Space Program had a unique decision-making structure where engineers had a lot of independence, often leading to rivalries among them. This sometimes resulted in substantial projects being undertaken without the main leadership even being aware.
  2. Soviet space art reflected their exploration efforts and has key differences from Western art. It often showcased a more optimistic view of space, while Western art varied greatly in style and representation.
  3. Many Soviet rockets had an open interstage design to ensure proper fuel settling during stage separations. This design choice was simpler compared to methods used in American rockets, allowing for more efficient launches.
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Reading List 11/22/25

Construction Physics • 10647 implied HN points • 22 Nov 25
đź•ą Technology Engineering
  1. A small mistake, like a wrongly placed wire label, can cause big disasters, such as the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge. This shows how even tiny failures in complex systems can lead to serious problems.
  2. Apple is using 3D printing to make its watch cases from titanium, which cuts down on waste and helps the environment. This method also allows for unique designs that can't be made through traditional methods.
  3. Most of the work done at Bell Labs wasn't about groundbreaking inventions but rather improving the efficiency of the telephone system. Sometimes, less exciting tasks play a crucial role in a company's success.

The Sequence Opinion #823: SaaSmagedon, Is SaaS Dead?: Vibe Coding, Agentic Engineering, and the Collapse of the Code Moat

TheSequence • 266 implied HN points • 12 Mar 26
đź•ą Technology Engineering
  1. The SaaS business model is being fundamentally repriced as per-seat pricing, human-first interfaces, and the old code-based moat are losing value, which is causing major market sell-offs.
  2. The computational stack is shifting from human-written code to neural network weights and now to LLMs programmed by prompts, changing how software is built, deployed, and monetized.
  3. Autonomous AI agents and practices like “Vibe Coding” are turning products into outcome-delivering services (Service-as-Software), threatening CRUD-based apps and traditional SaaS monetization.

SpaceX Magic

Chris’s Substack • 239 implied HN points • 18 Oct 24
đź•ą Technology Engineering
  1. SpaceX successfully launched Starship and caught its returning booster mid-air using a unique chopsticks method. This makes the booster reusable, saving fuel for future launches.
  2. With plans for future flights, SpaceX is addressing small issues found in the last flight to ensure their next mission goes smoothly and demonstrates reliable reentry.
  3. Starship is being designed for missions to the Moon and Mars, and with improved technology, SpaceX aims to make space travel affordable and accessible for many in the future.

The Introduction of Formal QA to Nuclear Power

Gordian Knot News • 102 implied HN points • 15 Mar 26
đź•ą Technology Engineering
  1. The AEC turned vague goals (Criterion 1) into mandatory but open‑ended QA rules (Appendix B), leaving huge discretion to regulators and enabling continual escalation of requirements.
  2. Formal QA became self‑reinforcing: more inspections and reported nonconformances generated more demands for tests and paperwork, driving up costs and sometimes crowding out real quality enforcement.
  3. A pragmatic, layered inspection model — yard QC, independent classification inspectors, and owner inspectors — can enforce quality effectively without drowning projects in paperwork, unlike the paperwork‑focused regulatory approach that wasn’t even applied internally.

The AI Mexican Standoff

Machine Learning Everything • 1379 implied HN points • 30 Jan 26
đź•ą Technology Engineering
  1. AI is blurring the lines between engineers, product managers, and designers because it can handle many tasks from each role.
  2. People who learn a bit of multiple disciplines and master AI orchestration become far more valuable — a super-empowered generalist can design, code, and ship products alone.
  3. Jobs are just bundles of tasks, and those tasks will shift with AI, so you must keep swapping skills (like AI-assisted coding and orchestration) to stay relevant as roles evolve.

It's hard to build an oscillator

lcamtuf’s thing • 7958 implied HN points • 21 Nov 25
đź•ą Technology Engineering
  1. Building a reliable oscillator is tough because it needs gain to work. Without gain, any oscillation will die out quickly.
  2. Using a Schmitt trigger can help create an oscillator with no stable midpoint. This means the circuit will keep switching back and forth, creating consistent oscillations.
  3. Different methods exist to build oscillators, like using op-amps or creating resonance with phase shifts. Each has its own way of generating oscillation, but they all need a careful balance of components.

Inverse Problems

arg min • 515 implied HN points • 03 Oct 24
🔬 Science Engineering
  1. Inverse problems help us create images or models from measurements, like how a CT scan builds a picture of our insides using X-rays.
  2. A key part of working with inverse problems is using linear models, which means we can express our measurements and the related image or signal in straightforward mathematical terms.
  3. Choosing the right functions to handle noise and image characteristics is crucial because it guides how the algorithm makes sense of the data we collect.

How Common is Multiple Invention?

Construction Physics • 24636 implied HN points • 05 Jun 25
đź•ą Technology Engineering
  1. Multiple invention happens often, with many famous inventions being created by different people at the same time. This shows that many ideas can seem obvious or inspired by similar problems.
  2. Over half of the inventions studied had some form of multiple efforts toward creation, and nearly 40% were successful near-successes. This suggests that important inventions attract a lot of creative minds.
  3. The rate of multiple invention didn't change much over time, implying that when certain conditions are right, many people are likely to think of similar solutions to the same challenges.

Cursed circuits: charge pump voltage halver

lcamtuf’s thing • 4693 implied HN points • 02 Dec 25
đź•ą Technology Engineering
  1. Charge pumps are efficient circuits that can double voltage using capacitors. They work by transferring charge between capacitors to create a higher voltage output.
  2. Unlike standard voltage dividers, a specific charge pump design can halve voltage. This is done by using capacitors in series and moving a 'flying' capacitor to balance the voltages.
  3. The charge transfer stabilizes the output voltage at half the supply, which is different from typical voltage dividers since it doesn't depend on the size of the capacitors.

Be a Bridge Builder

The Engineering Leader • 99 implied HN points • 20 Oct 24
đź•ą Technology Engineering
  1. Technical skills are important for engineers, but to become a leader, you also need to connect with other teams and understand the bigger picture. It's about being a bridge builder, not just a tech expert.
  2. Having strong communication skills helps in explaining your work to others and getting their feedback. This way, everyone can work better together.
  3. To grow into a leadership role, seek opportunities to collaborate with different departments, learn about the company's goals, and create a culture of teamwork.

N-1 Block A

Soviet Space Substack • 178 implied HN points • 12 Oct 24
đź•ą Technology Engineering
  1. The N1-3L rocket has a complex engine system, with different engines numbered for clarity. Understanding these details is crucial for analyzing the rocket's design and performance.
  2. Grid fins are an important feature of the N1 rocket, providing enhanced control during high-speed flights. Their design has evolved over time to improve stability and effectiveness.
  3. There were various design changes made to the Block A of the N1 rocket to improve its function and control. These updates were likely based on lessons learned from previous flight tests.

Engineering as Humanity's Highest Achievement

Chris Arnade Walks the World • 1212 implied HN points • 16 Jan 26
🎭️ Culture Engineering
  1. A cultural belief in human ability to shape the world — rooted in the Enlightenment — made the Industrial Revolution and sustained economic growth possible.
  2. Engineering and big infrastructure projects like canals, dams, and bridges are the most tangible, impactful expressions of that belief because they directly improve everyday life.
  3. Offshoring hands-on manufacturing erodes a society's 'can-do' culture and practical skills, and even good geography can't substitute for the loss of that engineering expertise.

Antigravity and the Deep State

Tao Lin • 959 implied HN points • 06 Aug 24
🔬 Science Engineering
  1. Antigravity is the idea of controlling gravity, but most scientists say it's impossible based on current physics theories.
  2. Some researchers believe that experiments with antigravity technology started over a century ago and involved famous inventors like Nikola Tesla.
  3. In the 1950s, there was much excitement about antigravity and its potential for new aircraft, but after that, discussions stopped, possibly because the technology became classified.

The "Death Valley" of Building in AI

Entry Level Investing • 117 implied HN points • 04 Mar 26
đź•ą Technology Engineering
  1. Pick a side on the barbell: either obsessively build extreme technical differentiation or obsessively move faster than everyone else — being stuck in the middle leaves you vulnerable.
  2. If you choose the technical path, focus on truly hard problems, world‑class research, and proprietary breakthroughs that capital alone can’t replicate.
  3. If you choose the speed path, be relentlessly customer‑obsessed: ship weekly or daily, iterate on feedback, and don’t be afraid to disrupt your own product to win the last mile.

The Great Connection Pool Meltdown

Jacob’s Tech Tavern • 3280 implied HN points • 06 Nov 25
đź•ą Technology Engineering
  1. Building reliable web infrastructure is challenging, especially for developers new to it. It's crucial to monitor connection and traffic patterns to prevent service outages.
  2. Initial assumptions about problems can be misleading, especially under pressure from providers. Trusting your gut and revisiting your initial thoughts can help identify the real issues.
  3. Designing systems that can handle failures is essential. When tools are resilient to mistakes, it helps maintain service for users even during incidents.

SAT Scores vs. On-the-Job Performance

Generating Conversation • 163 implied HN points • 26 Feb 26
đź•ą Technology Engineering
  1. Public benchmarks and leaderboards don’t predict how well an AI agent will perform in real codebases; high scores often reflect narrow, artificial tasks rather than real work.
  2. Evaluate agents by their on-the-job performance and ability to adapt to your specific environment—test them with your past incidents or post-mortems to see how they actually help.
  3. Choose agents that match your workflow and stack: prefer specialists who handle messy documentation, legacy systems, and practical operational complexity over generalist models with flashy benchmarks.

What Learning by Doing Looks Like

Construction Physics • 25889 implied HN points • 12 Dec 24
đź•ą Technology Engineering
  1. Learning curves show that the more something is produced, the cheaper it gets. This happens because experience helps make production more efficient.
  2. The evolution of polycrystalline diamond drill bits shows that real-world experience is key to improving technology. Companies learned from failures and made better bits over time.
  3. Understanding how different bits work in different rocks was crucial for progress. Customizing the design of drill bits based on experience led to much better drilling performance.

High-Throughput Chemistry and Engineering with Kadi Saar

Lever • 19 implied HN points • 24 Oct 24
🔬 Science Engineering
  1. Kadi Saar has an impressive background in both chemistry and engineering. She excelled in academics and sports, even winning a talent show in mental arithmetic.
  2. Her research focuses on combining high-throughput structural biology with computational chemistry to help develop new drugs. She has shown that analyzing diverse ligand structures can lead to better drug design.
  3. Kadi emphasizes the importance of enjoying the people you work with when choosing projects. Collaborating with good people makes the journey more fulfilling.

A Capacitor Will Stop That... Right?

filterwizard • 19 implied HN points • 30 Sep 24
đź•ą Technology Engineering
  1. Capacitors are used to manage electrical noise and improve stability in circuits. They help smooth out fluctuations in voltage.
  2. Understanding electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) can prevent interference between electronic devices. This is important for maintaining performance and reliability.
  3. Decoupling is a key technique in design to isolate different circuit parts. It helps reduce noise and improves the overall functionality of the system.

Tidy Together Reboot

Software Design: Tidy First? • 331 implied HN points • 29 Jan 26
đź•ą Technology Engineering
  1. Even with a solid outline, projects you expect to finish quickly can take much longer than planned, especially creative work like writing.
  2. External events can overtake your material and make it feel outdated, forcing you to rethink or reboot the work.
  3. Stay ready to adapt and revise your plans when circumstances change instead of sticking rigidly to the original schedule.

Reading List 07/19/25

Construction Physics • 5845 implied HN points • 19 Jul 25
đź•ą Technology Engineering
  1. Chinese shipbuilding has a rich history, but finding complete histories is tough. There are a few good books that piece together the growth of the industry over the years.
  2. Air quality varies a lot across the globe, with cities in India and Pakistan often ranking among the worst. Smaller cities in Hawaii tend to have much better air quality.
  3. Installing solar panels on cargo ships is an exciting new idea that could make shipping greener. A recent ship successfully uses solar power to help run its systems, showing the potential for renewable energy in maritime transport.

Data Science Weekly - Issue 564

Data Science Weekly Newsletter • 119 implied HN points • 12 Sep 24
đź•ą Technology Engineering
  1. Understanding AI interpretability is important for building resilient systems. We need to focus on why interpretability matters and how it relates to AI's resilience.
  2. Testing machine learning systems can be challenging, but starting with basic best practices like CI pipelines and E2E testing can help. This ensures the models work well in real-world scenarios.
  3. Visualizing machine learning models is crucial for better understanding and analysis. Tools like Mycelium can help create clear visual representations of complex data structures.

The Chronicles of GND, Part 1

filterwizard • 39 implied HN points • 25 Sep 24
đź•ą Technology Engineering
  1. Voltage is always measured between two points, not at a single point. You need to connect both leads of a voltmeter correctly to get accurate readings.
  2. Kirchhoff's Madness refers to thinking you can measure voltage with just one lead, leading to misunderstandings in circuits. Always define where both leads are connected.
  3. Current doesn't just disappear when it flows to ground; it travels in a closed loop. Misunderstanding this can cause problems in circuit design and analysis.

4.4.2 The Catt Question

Fields & Energy • 319 implied HN points • 21 Aug 24
🔬 Science Engineering
  1. When a voltage is applied to a transmission line, it creates a net positive charge in the top wire and a net negative charge in the bottom wire. This happens as electrons move under the influence of the electric field set by the voltage.
  2. While it seems like charge must move quickly with the wavefront, it is actually the density of charges that changes. The actual movement of electrons is slow compared to the speed of light.
  3. Understanding how charges interact with electric fields helps explain electrical conductivity and related effects. Electromagnetic phenomena involve more than just moving charges; the interaction of fields and energy is also crucial.

American Will: The Panama Canal

Kvetch • 168 implied HN points • 14 Feb 26
đź’ľ History Engineering
  1. The canal was an unprecedented engineering achievement: builders created Gatun Lake, massive locks, and moved staggering amounts of earth and concrete to connect two oceans.
  2. Defeating disease was decisive: eradicating yellow fever by eliminating mosquito breeding made large-scale construction possible and saved thousands of workers.
  3. Political power and human toil made the project happen: U.S. intervention secured control of the zone, and a vast, multinational workforce labored under harsh, often deadly conditions to build the canal.

Analyze FIR filters using just high-school algebra

filterwizard • 39 implied HN points • 23 Sep 24
đź•ą Technology Engineering
  1. FIR filters have a finite impulse response, meaning they only remember a limited amount of past input. This makes them predictable and stable, especially for applications needing fast settling times.
  2. You can think of FIR filter coefficients as a polynomial, which allows you to use algebra to analyze and create filters. This approach helps in understanding how changing coefficients affects the filter's behavior.
  3. By factoring the polynomial of an FIR filter, you can create smaller filters that combine to produce the same overall effect. This technique allows for a deeper exploration of filter design, giving you more control over the filter's characteristics.

Containerized Missile Systems Without Cranes

Tapa’s Substack • 4 HN points • 05 Oct 24
đź•ą Technology Engineering
  1. Containerized missile systems aim to fit missiles into shipping containers for easy transport. This could help with quick deployment and keeping them hidden.
  2. Most missiles are too tall for standard shipping containers, requiring them to be laid down horizontally. This makes launching them more complicated.
  3. A new idea suggests using a small jump jet to lift and angle the missile for firing, making it faster and potentially cheaper than using a crane system.

New company, old playbook?

The Engineering Manager • 5 implied HN points • 20 Mar 26
đź•ą Technology Engineering
  1. You arrive as both an expert and a beginner, so hold your experience lightly and adopt a beginner's mind to stay curious and open to how things actually work here.
  2. Use the first 30 days for a listening tour and simple assessments—listen more than you act, resist quick fixes, and learn who and why things are the way they are.
  3. In days 30–90 pick your battles, steer without doing, and land visible results that set the right tone; bring guiding principles with you but leave behind one-size-fits-all prescriptions.

Turing Award Histories

The Chip Letter • 4149 implied HN points • 26 Jul 25
đź•ą Technology Engineering
  1. The Computer History Museum has a treasure trove of almost 2,000 interviews with important figures in computer science, offering insights into the field and its pioneers.
  2. These interviews capture not just technical knowledge but also the personal stories of innovators, making them relatable and engaging for anyone interested in technology.
  3. The Turing Award winners have made significant contributions and their interviews provide a curated starting point for exploring this vast archive of oral histories.

4.4.1 How Do Transmission Lines Work?

Fields & Energy • 319 implied HN points • 14 Aug 24
🔬 Science Engineering
  1. Transmission lines work by sending electrical signals through wires, where one wire gets a negative charge and the other gets a positive charge. This creates electric fields that help move energy along the line.
  2. To avoid signal loss and distortion, it's important to balance the electric and magnetic energies in transmission lines. If they are not balanced, the signal can get messed up over long distances.
  3. Oliver Heaviside developed key equations that describe how signals travel through transmission lines. His work highlighted the importance of using both electric and magnetic energies to achieve clear signal propagation.

The case for wasteful agents

Generating Conversation • 116 implied HN points • 19 Feb 26
đź•ą Technology Engineering
  1. When the cost of trying things becomes tiny, run lots of quick experiments in parallel. Most will fail, but this approach finds the right solution much faster.
  2. Cheap AI prototypes and low-cost automation change how teams spend time: product people should build many rough, working prototypes while engineers focus on hardening and scaling, and experience matters more for taste than for avoiding every mistake.
  3. Build agents to be 'wasteful' by trying multiple speculative paths and presenting options for incremental user feedback. This beam-search–like behavior will likely become the standard and yields better results than single-shot attempts.

The NRC is more radiophobic than the public

Gordian Knot News • 87 implied HN points • 23 Feb 26
đź•ą Technology Engineering
  1. Regulators and the nuclear industry often act more fearful of radiation than the public. That fear drives designs and policies—like fail‑closed vent valves and 'late venting'—which delayed critical actions and made accidents worse.
  2. Radiophobia favors vague language over dose numbers. That prevents sound risk assessment and leads to overly conservative, costly, or harmful responses like broad evacuations or panic advice.
  3. This widespread radiophobia both increases nuclear costs many times over and can turn natural disasters into larger nuclear disasters. A more balanced, numbers‑based approach would reduce harm and expense.

Reading List 12/28/24

Construction Physics • 11065 implied HN points • 28 Dec 24
đź•ą Technology Engineering
  1. China is planning to build the world's largest hydroelectric dam, which could produce a huge amount of electricity and help meet its environmental goals.
  2. Chinese manufacturing is becoming very competitive not just in cars, but also in pharmaceuticals, with Chinese companies now creating many new drugs.
  3. In manufacturing, new startups often struggle financially at first, facing a tough phase called the 'valley of death' before they start making profits.

The Story of the Telegrapher's Equations

Fields & Energy • 259 implied HN points • 16 Aug 24
🔬 Science Engineering
  1. Oliver Heaviside was a young scientist who created the Telegrapher's Equations in 1876. His work helped connect theories of electromagnetism to practical applications in telecommunication.
  2. Before Heaviside, the diffusion model was the main idea for how signals traveled. Heaviside improved this by showing that signals could travel as waves instead of just spreading out slowly.
  3. The development of these equations was influenced by earlier mathematicians like Fourier and scientists like Lord Kelvin. Heaviside's contribution built on their ideas and advanced the understanding of signal transmission over long distances.

Discarding the Shaft-and-Belt Model of Software Development

Am I Stronger Yet? • 360 implied HN points • 14 Jan 26
đź•ą Technology Engineering
  1. AI makes small software projects very cheap, so it becomes practical to build custom apps for a single person or team instead of one-size-fits-all products.
  2. Coding agents can write and maintain these small apps — people just tell the AI what they want, ask for changes, or have it rewrite messy code, enabling fast "vibe coding" workflows.
  3. Big, complex systems will still require professional engineers and robust infrastructure, but overall development practices will shift toward simpler, locally grown solutions that match AI's strengths.