It doesn't matter what the CEO of a big company says.

Build a strong foundation for yourself. Learn how to code. Coding isn't just about writing code it's about problem solving. You cannot just vibe code your way through real projects. You need structure, logic, clarity.

These tools will come and go but the thinking behind the good code will stay.

I don't consider myself an exceptionally smart person, but I can do my job well. I have been doing it for 10 years, I've done it in different companies working on different domains, I've done it in startups and on Fortune500 firms (where I'm currently at); I'm well regarded by my peers - they even put "senior" in my job title - and I can't, for the life of me, solve hard and even some medium Leetcode problems.

I mean I could, given, you know, enough time, the hability to discuss hard problems with my peers and to search online for what other people who faced it before have done about it, among other things ONE DOES ON A DAILY BASIS ON AN ACTUAL JOB, but cannot do on an interview. Also, math problems aren't part of the routine at most software engineering positions. They appear from time to time, and there's usually a library for it. And I don't think they're a very good proxy for determining how well you'll fare with real problems, such as the far more frequent architectural issues related to scalability of a distributed system, which have more to do with communication between subsystems, or the choice of appropriate models and API contracts - which depends on good communication and planning more than anything else - etc. Rarely does the particular implementation of a single function that boils down to a quirky mathmatical problem matter, nor does recognizing that a particular problem boils down to a quirky mathmatical solution translates well to having the necessary skills for the aforementioned actual tasks one has to perform.

The only reason I'm interviewing in the first place is because of personal circumstances forcing me to relocate. But my god do I not miss it. Leetcode is a nice platform to stay sharp, but fuck you if you use it to put an interviewee under unrealistic circumstances and judge them by it.

I talked to a tech recruiter yesterday. He told me that he's only recruiting senior programmers these days. No more juniors.... Here’s why this shift is happening in my opinion.

Reason 1: AI-Powered Seniors.
AI lets senior programmers do their job and handle tasks once assigned to juniors. Will this unlock massive productivity or pile up technical debt? No one know for sure, but many CTOs are testing this approach.

Reason 2: Oversupply of Juniors
Ten years ago, self-taught coders ruled because universities lagged behind on modern stacks (React, Go, Docker, etc.). Now, coding bootcamps and global programs churn out skilled juniors, flooding the market with talent.

I used to advise young people to master coding for a stellar career. Today, the game’s different. In my opinion juniors should:

- Go full-stack to stay versatile.
- Build human skills AI can’t touch (yet): empathizing with clients, explaining tradeoffs, designing systems, doing technical sales, product management...
- Or, dive into AI fields like machine learning, optimizing AI performance, or fine-tuning models.

The future’s still bright for coders who adapt. What’s your take—are junior roles vanishing, or is this a phase?

This is stunning. Adam is such a great and enthusiastic voice for CSS and is constantly pumping out fun content. At the same time he's always had great things to say about Chrome and the dev team there so he's been a real ambassador for Google too.

There aren't that many places which would fund this type of CSS devrel role but it's wild that Google would choose to not be one of them.

built a portfolio site for a designer client. 2 weeks later, he sends me a link like “uhh… is this your design?” and sure enough, it's the exact same layout. same css, same image compression artifacts .... only the fonts and contact form are different. someone cloned the whole thing.

we filed a dmca, but they came back saying “prove the content was published earlier.” like?? we have a domain and live push dates. out of frustration, i looped in someone from cyberclaims net who’s dealt with cloned web assets before. they helped build a case with archive org snapshots, image metadata, and backend versioning evidence.

still dealing with the host, but at least now we have formal proof it’s not just a "similar" site ...it’s a direct lift. if you ever publish portfolio work, keep copies of everything. even your code timestamps.

A 3d city where you can leave a message.

Made this project trying to learn three.js. The idea is you can leave a message somewhere in this city, and others can read it if they stumble upon it. You could find someone else's message too. Leave a message :)

https://naisho.pages.dev

I prefer desktop browsing over mobile, and as such, am forced to put up with the awful user experience:

• When closing a video in the main feed, the sound keeps playing
• Post are repeated, same sub, same user, when browsing /r/all (even on old.reddit
• Click into a post. Go back to main feed. Select another post. Hit back button thinking it’ll go to main feed, instead get redirected to previously viewed post.
• Opening an image in a new tab loads it in reddit's crappy image viewer and won't let you view it stand-alone without a browser extension

Sorry for the rant.

Not sure if it was just me, but when I was getting into web dev, I kept running into advice or “facts” that sounded super convincing until they didn’t hold up at all in the real world.

Things like:

“You have to use the latest framework to stay relevant”

“You must have a perfect portfolio before applying anywhere”

“CSS is easy once you understand it” (lol)

What’s something you used to believe when starting out that now just makes you laugh or roll your eyes?

I’ve been a professional software developer for ~7 years, and for the past couple of years, I’ve been the technical cofounder of a startup. Lately, I’ve been struggling to find the signal in the noise when it comes to “vibe coding” and the current wave of AI hype.

Personally, I still use VS Code. I have Copilot installed, but I mostly treat it as a supercharged autocomplete for repetitive patterns—like defining local state in React or writing boilerplate try/catch blocks in Express routes. For more complex problems, I’ve started relying more on ChatGPT and Claude as “pair programmers.” That said, I still think through the architecture myself and stay in the driver’s seat.

Recently, I was talking to a mentor who suggested that I might be doing it wrong—that I should let AI take the first pass entirely and just act as a final reviewer before merging the changes. Basically, offload as much as possible and shift my role to quality control. He was raving about WindSurf and how it takes the whole codebase into account when making suggestions.

On the one hand, that approach makes me uncomfortable. I’ve seen AI hallucinate and produce overly complex, narrowly scoped code. But on the other hand, I worry about falling behind—missing out on real efficiency gains because I’m clinging to old workflows. It’s possible that my experience is actually blinding me to how much AI is already capable of (not just what it might be able to do down the road).

So I’m curious: how are other experienced devs, especially those working on production apps, incorporating AI into your workflow? What’s been working for you? What hasn’t?

For me, it's auto-playing audio and video

Before anyone says to search on reddit and that it is not possible, I read this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/axaltc/can_a_website_know_if_i_used_developer_tools/

however today I ran into a website that does this very successfully and I honestly can't figure out how. I ran into it accidentally by visiting the page from one of my side-projects I was working on and saw that it was blocked. I couldn't figure out how it was doing it because it looks like it shows you the forbidden 403 page before any content is even loaded -- almost seems like a server-side trick? There is some sort of captcha script loaded too not sure if the secret sauce is in there somewhere? I'm rarely stumped with web things, and this is borderline impressive if it was not so unethical to do by Asus. This even works if the devtools is opened in a new window which is wild to me. Maybe something in the header is sent / not sent? how would they do that before the page even loads anything though? crazy. appreciate any insight!

Website in question (open dev tools and reload to see the magic):

https://shop.asus.com/us/rog/90lm09t0-b013b0-rog-swift-oled-pg32ucdm.html

I can't think of any other field where you're expected to work for free and prove you can do the job before you get paid. I'm sick of getting through the first few rounds of interviews only to have to code in front of a panel—or worse, waste my weekend when it's 70 and sunny—sitting in front of a computer doing unpaid labor, despite having 20 years of experience and a four-year degree. This field and its hiring processes are becoming more and more toxic by the day, and I'm seriously considering changing fields.

Recently, I read about the number 52! — the mind-blowing fact that a standard deck of 52 cards can be arranged in more ways than there are seconds since the beginning of the universe. It’s a simple concept, but it truly stunned me. If shuffled properly, there’s an incredibly high chance that a specific sequence of cards has never existed before… and may never exist again.

I’d been wanting to build a small side project, so I took on the challenge of creating an ode to randomness and built Infinite Shuffle.

How does it work?
Each time you shuffle, the new sequence is compared to all those that came before, checking how far it matches from the start. How far can we go?

A touch of gamification
To make it a bit more fun (at least for the first few shuffles), I added some gamification — you can see your longest matches and how they compare to others.

I plan to leave this online for as long as I can. Maybe one day there’ll be too many shuffles to support. Maybe it’ll fade quietly into the void, never finding a perfect match. Either way, it was a silly, fun project to build.

Shuffle away!

https://www.infiniteshuffle.net/

I honestly can’t wrap my head around the absurdity of being forced to go into the office when remote work is not only possible—it’s often better. Sure, there’s value in face-to-face interaction: spontaneous questions, team bonding, quicker clarifications. I get it. But when you weigh that against the absolute hell that is the 満員電車—the soul-crushing sardine-can commute that eats away your time, your sanity, and your well-being—it just doesn’t balance out. Not even close.

Let’s talk about that time lost. That’s time I could be investing in rest, in family, in upskilling, or just in being human. Instead, I’m stuck spending hours each week pressed into strangers like a human Tetris block, all for the privilege of doing the same work I could’ve done better from my own desk at home.

And the cost? Sure, the company reimburses the fare—but that money just rolls right into the next trip. It’s not money in my pocket, it’s just a company-sponsored hamster wheel. I’m not saving anything—I’m surviving.

And here’s the kicker: I work in IT. Internet Technology. The very industry responsible for building tools that make work more efficient, more flexible, more human-friendly. We’ve created the systems that let people collaborate from opposite sides of the globe, but I still have to drag myself into a physical building because… what? That’s how it used to be?

It’s like watching someone use a horse-drawn carriage to deliver emails. We’ve invented the car, the train, the goddamn spaceship—and yet they’re hitching up the old mare because “that’s how it was done in our day.”

The logic is stuck in amber. It’s corporate nostalgia masquerading as strategy. A refusal to evolve, even as the world has already moved on. And I’m tired—so tired—of pretending this makes sense. Productivity doesn’t live in a cubicle. Connection doesn’t die outside the office. And trust? Trust isn’t built by proximity. It’s built by respect and results.

So no, I’m not just annoyed. I’m furious. Because it’s not just inconvenient—it’s a betrayal of everything our industry stands for. We’re supposed to be the future. Instead, we’re sleepwalking back into the past like it’s some golden era worth reliving.

Wake up. The world has changed. And we helped change it. Now let us live it.

For context, I run a startup that has raised funding, and employs a bunch of people.

Every Software Engineering position we advertised for got 200+ applications. We're not even a reputed company so the volume of applications is a bit annoying to handle so we have to filter by something.

1. Filtering by degree is a non starter, many of my best hires don't have CS degrees and have added to our product in exceptional ways. Plus many of the CS grads we interviewed didn't even know what basic stuff was like git or react which any basic junior developer should know by now. Also even if we did filter by degree, how do I know which uni is good and which is bad - I would have to bias my self heavily there.

2. I think Leetcode and algorithms are horrible for web dev tests so no I don't like using these. Timed coding is not a useful measure of anyones creativity or competence

3. We tried doing a reading test and going through the code through a standard interview process but people who can read code and people who can go the extra mile and add creative features to our product are completely different beasts

4. We have a take home that has worked wonders - we give the candidate wide latitude on how they want to build it and we've found a lot of creativity in the solutions we've received and the quality of submissions has helped us significantly narrow down to who we want to hire

5. The interviews are much much more enjoyable when people go through their own solution to take homes, people have insights into our product that we didn't know or certain ways to do features that we wouldn't consider etc

Since people think Take homes are unpaid labor - which I agree to an extent- how would you shrink the pool from 200 applicants to say 5 we want to interview? Open to suggestions on improving the process