The hottest Engineering Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
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Dandelions

Sunday Letters • 39 implied HN points • 14 May 23
📖 Philosophy Life lessons Problem Solving Nature Engineering Mindfulness
  1. Don't get too caught up in your goals. Sometimes, focusing too much on a single goal can lead to missing out on other enjoyable aspects or better solutions.
  2. Like trying to fight dandelions in a lawn, we can get fixated on solving problems the wrong way. It's important to recognize when a goal isn't worth the struggle.
  3. Regularly step back and assess if you're on the right path. Taking a moment to rethink can often reveal simpler and more effective options.

In praise of hard optimization

Sunday Letters • 59 implied HN points • 09 Jan 23
🕹 Technology Software AI Engineering Optimization Programming
  1. New AI models are exciting, but they come with their own challenges, like performance limits and the need for optimization. It's important for developers to tackle these constraints creatively.
  2. In the past, developers had to deal with strict limits on memory and processing power. Today, while we have more resources, financial constraints can also impact performance.
  3. Now is a good time to revisit basic computer science skills and focus on optimization. Solving tough engineering problems can be hard, but it’s also very rewarding.

Engineering Antibodies to Avoid Escape Mutants

Axial • 22 implied HN points • 03 Mar 24
🔬 Science Antibodies Viral Infections Engineering Immune System
  1. Combining antibodies directed at different viral targets helps neutralize infections like hepatitis B virus and RSV more effectively.
  2. Serial passage of virally infected cells during preclinical development helps ensure the continued efficacy of antibody combinations.
  3. Engineering antibodies through genetic manipulation can enhance effector functions and improve target specificity, increasing their efficacy in fighting infections.

How to code for 60 years

Sunday Letters • 139 implied HN points • 20 Dec 21
🕹 Technology Programming Engineering Education Career Culture
  1. Engineering and coding can have very long careers; some people code for decades and adapt to many changes in technology.
  2. Learning is a continuous process, and it's important to stay humble and curious, no matter how experienced you become.
  3. Younger coders may benefit from understanding the fundamentals and history of coding, rather than just focusing on trendy tools.
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Phage-assisted evolution and protein engineering yield compact, efficient prime editors

Axial • 37 implied HN points • 20 Oct 23
🔬 Science Biotechnology Genetics Research Evolution Engineering
  1. New optimized prime editors called PE6 variants improve editing outcomes in mammalian cells
  2. Phage-assisted continuous evolution enhances the efficiency of compact reverse transcriptases
  3. Combining evolved Cas9 domains with engineered RTs creates efficient prime editors for installing DNA sequences in vivo

We are as gods

Kvetch • 50 implied HN points • 23 Jul 23
🕹 Technology Engineering Manufacturing Innovation Materials History
  1. The evolution of technology has allowed for incredible precision and complexity, such as the growth of jet engine blades from a single crystal of metal.
  2. The history of precision engineering is intertwined with the rise of different nations, from Britain to America to Japan.
  3. Advancements in engineering have led to mind-blowing feats, like printing transistors at atomic scales using extreme ultraviolet radiation.

Runway Project

De Novo • 66 implied HN points • 27 Jul 23
🕹 Technology Gaming Aerospace Engineering Art Design
  1. Runway Project is a combat tournament and art show based in Kerbal Space Program
  2. Craft design in Runway Project requires balancing firepower, thrust, maneuverability, resilience, and artistic potential
  3. Important design tips for Runway Project include considering round rules, incorporating art into craft design, testing designs, ensuring craft resilience, and tuning AI

Solve the right problem

Sunday Letters • 99 implied HN points • 27 Mar 22
🕹 Technology Software Development Engineering User Experience System Design Product Management
  1. It's important to solve the right problem. If you don't understand the problem clearly, you might end up overcomplicating things.
  2. Sometimes, less is more. Simplifying designs can make your code easier to manage and improve user experience.
  3. Don't try to fix every possible edge case; focus on the most common scenarios. This can help you avoid unnecessary complexity.

How Discord Handles Billions of Messages [System Design Sundays]

Technology Made Simple • 39 implied HN points • 17 Oct 22
🕹 Technology System Design Messaging Database Search Engineering
  1. Storage is crucial in system design, requiring detailed analysis of data generated for efficient handling.
  2. Discord uses Cassandra as its database to manage the storage of messages efficiently.
  3. Indexing messages and using tools like ElasticSearch are key for efficient search functionality in large data sets.

Episode 30: Better Built By Burkhard

burkhardstubert • 59 implied HN points • 15 Nov 22
🕹 Technology Software Hardware IOT Development Engineering
  1. Many development kit providers focus mainly on hardware, but customers actually need software solutions too. It's better if they offer a complete package that includes useful software support.
  2. Several manufacturers are already adding value through software features. For example, some provide remote management and monitoring options, which help save time for their customers.
  3. Understanding customer needs is key. If companies build systems that help customers easily create their own software, it can lead to quicker product launches and better overall success.

Avoiding the Billion Dollar Mistake Managers and Engineers Make [Storytime Saturdays]

Technology Made Simple • 39 implied HN points • 09 Oct 22
🕹 Technology Coding Engineering Management
  1. Fixing the billion-dollar mistakes made by managers and engineers can lead to significant financial benefits that will continue to grow.
  2. By addressing this mistake, individuals can achieve great rewards while actually reducing the amount of work they do.
  3. Learning to avoid this mistake could result in monetary gains without the need for extra long hours or hard work.

This Week in LLM Land

Prompt Engineering • 19 implied HN points • 28 May 23
🕹 Technology AI Models Open Source Engineering Research
  1. ChatGPT conversations are now shareable to prevent screenshot sharing and misinformation.
  2. Tree-of-thoughts prompting is a new approach where LLM is prompted with multiple initial steps and evaluates each one.
  3. A new highly performant open-source model called Guanaco outperforms previous models and was fine-tuned using a new approach named QLoRA.

How To Estimate An Engineering Project (Or Really Any Project)

Throwable • 19 implied HN points • 03 Sep 23
🕹 Technology Engineering Uncertainty Team Collaboration
  1. Estimating projects is not impossible, but relies on understanding uncertainties and mapping outcomes to a distribution curve.
  2. Providing project estimates as a range with an error rate is a more accurate way than giving a specific date.
  3. Reducing uncertainty in a project can help narrow the estimate range and improve predictability of outcomes.

Is Your Team a Cost Centre Without Product Understanding?

🔮 Crafting Tech Teams • 19 implied HN points • 31 Jul 23
💼 Business Team Dynamics Product Management Engineering Tech Culture Product Development
  1. Product understanding is crucial for a strong team. A team without it may struggle to bring products to market efficiently.
  2. Ensuring a strong product culture is essential. It involves keeping the product team and founders aligned and integrated into the engineering process.
  3. Maintaining a balance between product and engineering value streams is key. This helps in avoiding a disconnect that can make a team function more as a cost center.

Stubs (II)

Only Wonder Knows • 19 implied HN points • 28 Jul 23
🔬 Science Engineering Simulation Analysis Design
  1. In time domain analysis of stubs, keeping stub delay less than half the signal rise time leads to undistorted waveforms.
  2. Rules of thumb for stub analysis suggest keeping stub delay below half the signal rise time for minimal effect.
  3. In high-speed designs, stubs usually aren't an issue if good engineering practices are followed, but caution is needed when boards are very high-speed.

RDEL #3: The top productivity factors for engineers

Research-Driven Engineering Leadership • 19 implied HN points • 31 Jul 23
💼 Business Productivity Engineering Leadership Research Management
  1. Developer productivity is not just about technical tools, but non-technical factors play a significant role.
  2. The top three productivity factors for engineers were found to be non-technical in nature.
  3. Managers aiming to enhance developer productivity should prioritize communication with developers to understand their needs and preferences.

RDEL #10: How much does task significance improve performance?

Research-Driven Engineering Leadership • 19 implied HN points • 18 Sep 23
💼 Business Leadership Research Engineering Productivity Empathy
  1. Connecting work with impact significantly improves performance. Demonstrated impact on performance by showing employees how their work benefits others.
  2. Engineers can lose empathy for the significance of their work especially on internal-facing teams. Engineering managers must find ways to connect engineering work with the end user to boost performance.
  3. Tying engineering tasks to real outcomes for customers boosts empathy and productivity. Strategies like sharing customer feedback and shadowing customer success teams can help engineers understand the impact of their work.

RDEL #2: What makes a great manager of software engineers?

Research-Driven Engineering Leadership • 19 implied HN points • 24 Jul 23
🕹 Technology Management Software Engineering
  1. The best managers of software engineers create a positive work environment to support their team's success.
  2. Enabling autonomy and fostering talent growth are key attributes that engineers value in their managers.
  3. Engineers prioritize a supportive and autonomous work environment over managers being highly technical.

Engineering Leadership Principles

Software Engineering by Hugo Dias • 19 implied HN points • 03 Mar 23
🕹 Technology Engineering Leadership Management Product Delivery
  1. High-performing teams have clear purpose, small size, stable structure, and autonomy for improvement.
  2. Ensuring project completion, minimizing waiting times, and shipping regularly are key to effective project delivery.
  3. Product success relies on setting clear goals, measuring progress, iterating frequently, and valuing team ideas in feature development.

SRE Evangelist

software + caffeine = blog • 19 implied HN points • 06 Mar 23
🕹 Technology Engineering Communication Training Reliability Developers
  1. The role of a Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) can vary greatly depending on the company, from Ops+ to Developer+ to 24x7 on-call incident responder.
  2. Successful SREs must be great evangelists, able to communicate effectively and passionately about reliability.
  3. SREs need to be force multipliers within their teams, encouraging a culture of reliability and making sure the value of reliability is understood and embraced.

Coaxial Drones

Barn Lab • 19 implied HN points • 30 May 23
🕹 Technology Drones Aircraft Engineering Open Source Military
  1. Coaxial drones have improved flight efficiency and longer flight durations due to their balanced torque effect from counter-rotating rotors.
  2. Coaxial drones are simpler in design with fewer motors and Electronic Speed Controllers, resulting in reduced weight and complexity compared to quadrocopters.
  3. Coaxial drones offer larger payload capacities, less noise, and are easier to transport, but their flight mode complexity presents challenges in control design.

How do I evaluate LLM coding agents? 🧑‍💻

LLMs for Engineers • 19 implied HN points • 31 Aug 23
🕹 Technology AI Software Development Data Engineering
  1. LLM coding agents have advanced from simple code completion to creating entire code repositories. This shows how technology is evolving to assist with more complex software development tasks.
  2. Evaluating these agents relies on benchmarks like HumanEval and MBPP, which test their coding accuracy. These tests are important to see how well the agents are performing.
  3. While there are new tools and benchmarks for LLM coding agents, users might still need to create specific evaluations for their own needs to get the best results. It's essential to tailor assessments to fit unique projects.

Twitter, Threads, and the misunderstood nature of engineering

Midnight Manager • 19 implied HN points • 12 Jul 23
🕹 Technology Engineering Social media Complex Systems
  1. Predictions in the heat of the moment may not always be accurate, it's better to avoid making them.
  2. Complex systems engineering involves problem-solving, invention, and durable product creation, not immediate catastrophic failures if work stops.
  3. Building and managing internet-scale systems like Twitter is extremely challenging due to the complexity of relationships between system components.

What's wrong with JUST generating text?

John Ball inside AI • 1 HN point • 31 Jul 24
🕹 Technology AI Software Development Engineering Computing
  1. Text generation alone isn't enough; it needs to convey real meaning. Without meaning, responses can be confusing or untrustworthy.
  2. Future digital assistants should focus on Natural Language Understanding to provide clearer, more useful answers. This will help developers create better, more reliable bots.
  3. Many generative AI models struggle with context and can produce incorrect information. Solutions involving deeper comprehension of language are needed to address these issues.

Losing always sucks. Even writing this sucks

Brick by Brick • 45 implied HN points • 05 Jul 23
💼 Business Sales Engineering Value Execution Customer Insights
  1. Losing sales opportunities can be a great learning opportunity for both sales and engineering teams.
  2. Sales losses can occur due to reasons like lack of alignment with customer needs, inadequate value proposition, and price constraints.
  3. To learn from sales losses, it's important to assess gaps in perceived value, interview customers for insights, and continually review reasons for lost deals.

Absolute vs Relative

Sunday Letters • 99 implied HN points • 18 Jan 22
🕹 Technology Engineering Measurements Standards Software Human behavior
  1. People often think in relative terms rather than absolute ones. For example, you might feel cold or warm based on how you compare the temperature to what you're used to.
  2. When measuring success or progress, it's easy to lower your standards without realizing it. If everyone around you is doing less, you might think you're doing fine, but that can lead to problems.
  3. Not everything can or should be measured absolutely. It’s important to stay aware and not become complacent, like the frog that doesn’t notice the water getting hotter.