If you want to improve your skills as a senior software engineer, read these 11 articles: ↓

The 132nd issue of the Polymathic Engineer is out. This week we talk about what to look for in code reviews: - Design Considerations - Functionality Review - Complexity - Test Quality - Naming and Documentation - Style and Consistency Read it here: newsletter.francofernando.com/p/what-to-look…

Software engineers spend at least 20% of their time reviewing code. But many of them don't know what to focus on. They randomly scan code changes, rather than having a structured approach. Here is what to look for in the right priority: 1. Design Considerations. Is the code

What are web sessions? Any data exchange on the web is based on a stateless protocol like HTTP. Every HTTP request is independent of the previous ones. However, users need to relate the requests to each other. For example, they want to stay logged in to a website

If you want to get better at coding interviews, learn these 10 patterns: ↓

The 133rd issue of the Polymathic Engineer is out. This week, we discuss how to design a URL shortener: - Capacity Planning - System Architecture - Generating Short URLs - Database Design - Caching for Performance - Analytics Service Read it here: newsletter.francofernando.com/p/designing-a-…

Design a URL Shortener is a popular interview question, and there is a reason for that. It has a tricky algorithmic part for URL generation, and covers many aspects of how to scale a system, make it available, and design a data model. Here is how to answer with a step-by-step

Every beginner in tech should know that nobody agrees on what a senior developer is. Some people with less than 2 years of experience have the title. At the same time, some do not have that title for 10. Seniority at one company may not mean seniority at another.

If you're a software engineer who wants to upskill in system design, read these 12 articles: ↓

The 134th issue of the Polymathic Engineer is out. This week, we discuss how to become a more confident software engineer: - Learn a Programming Language Well - Unit Tests and CI - Refactoring as a Habit - Pairing - Read Books - Teach Read it here: francofernando.substack.com/p/how-to-becom…

It took me 5+ years to become confident in my skills as a software engineer. But I could have done it in less time if I had followed these 6 pieces of advice: 1. Learn a programming language well   Start by mastering one language, its syntax, idioms, and best practices. Deep

Do you know what a database does most of the time? This classic paper makes a very detailed profile of a transactional database, figuring out what each CPU command does. Only 10% of the CPU instructions do critical work. The rest are spread out fairly evenly between: -

The 135th issue of the Polymathic Engineer is out. Today, we discuss system requirements: - Why They Matter - Functional vs Non-Functional - Availability & Reliability - Scalability & Performance - Durability & Consistency - more.. Read it here: newsletter.francofernando.com/p/requirements…

Imagine you're in a system design interview, and the interviewer asks you to "design a messaging system." If the first thing that comes to mind is brainstorming technical stuff, you're on the wrong path. You're missing the most critical part of the design process. Even the

If you're a software engineer who wants to know more about databases, read these 10 articles: ↓

The 136th edition of the Polymathic Engineer is out. This week, we talk about Content Delivery Networks: - What is a CDN - Benefits - Architecture - How CDNs Work - The Power of the Overlay Network - Best Practices - Real-World Examples Read it here: newsletter.francofernando.com/p/a-critical-g…

How do CDNs speed up content delivery on the internet? At a high level, a CDN works like a cache. When a CDN server gets a request, it checks if the requested resource is cached locally. If it doesn't, the server gets the resource from the origin server, caches it, and sends it

Don't go to a coding interview without knowing the difference between: - Generic Trees - Binary Trees - Binary Search Trees Here is all that you need to know: [1/3] ↓