iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 2h

Peter Mattis has quite the history in shipping large-scale, production sw: he created GIMP, built Gmail’s original backend, shipped Google’s Colossus distributed backend stroage system, and is the cofounder and CTO at Cockroach Labs, the makers of CockroachDB. A convo on distributed DBs: (cont'd)

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 9h

The last time building software sped up ~10x (early 2000s, the agile movement), a massive interest in automated testing followed almost immediately (unit tests, TDD, XP etc) Today, building software sped up 10x, easily: and a similar massive interest in automated testing + verification is following

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 27/09/2026

Very much enjoying this “GPU glossary” mini-book by Modal I got from Can Duruk when stopping by at Modal’s NYC office. I don’t know if the physical books can be purchased, but the book has an online version, as I learned; with the same contents: modal.com/gpu-glossary

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 25/09/2026

Oh WOW. I was going through my "outdated" (aka old) books and look what I found: the TypeScript book I bought in 2019 to get up to speed with the language. Only now realizing who the author is: Boris Cherny, widely known as the creator of Claude Code. Was a great writer + educator before :)

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 25/09/2026

"Application development did not change much for 20 years, but now, a new wave is crashing in. Most computers in the future must be put to work at least in part w/o programmers. Not surprisingly, programmers will instinctively resist methods described in this book." - 1982, James Martin (cont'd)

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 24/09/2026

That DHH saying out loud that the age of writing code by hand is over for the industry, and causing such an uproar is a bit interesting, given this was clear enough since ~January for most of us using the models + paying attention. Removed paywall: newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/when-ai-wr...

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 23/09/2026

What can us, engineers learn from design engineers? Turns out there’s lots, based on talking with one of the best design engineers in the industry, @maggieappleton.com • YouTube: youtu.be/KZSzF0KEFRg • Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/1gdA... • Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/d...

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 23/09/2026

I am a sucker for good books, and so especially O'Reilly books. Here's one that is WIP, but in return, it is free, thanks to @antithesis.com It's for CTOs / eng leaders who want to get AI to deliver *business value* which is... tricky. Get it here: pages.antithesis.com/oreilly-scal...

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 22/09/2026

A look into how the Windows team is integrating AI into their OS: eg adding agent identities, akin to that of a user. It's the first opinionated approach I see for AI agents at the OS level - and surely other OSes will do sg similar. Deepdive: newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/windows-an...

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 20/09/2026

Checked my spam folder Saw emails from Instinct's AI bot Closed my spam folder Cold email is increasingly dead, and tools like Instict will speed it up even more

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 17/09/2026

Why is the “grill-me” skill so popular, and why does its creator swear by the importance of software fundamentals? We cover this & many more w @mattpocock.com YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Dhc... Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/3pLP... Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a...

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 16/09/2026

Fresh data from GitHub: Agent-generated PRs have exploded in size. 9x the last 8 months (!!) No signs of slowing down. This is why everyone is rethinking code reviews, deploys, possibly even o11y thanks to the GH team for sharing this data with me! (Slide from my talk yesterday)

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 15/09/2026

Here's what OpenAI's agentic software factory looks like, today. It's surely not token efficient, but eg agents "babysitting" releases to prod is something new, and an interesting approach. Details: newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/openai-sof...

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 11/09/2026

A couple of trends I'm seeing across the industry. Which ones are you observing that I missed?

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 09/09/2026

How was Codex built, why is it open source, how is it used inside of OpenAI, and how has it changed software development within the company? Tibo Sottiaux was on the team that started Codex & now heads it up: • YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLST... • Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/b...

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 08/09/2026

I have to admit, I have zero excitement about this latest flurry of new model releases I am sure they are all better, but the existing ones were more than good enough, and I'm learning how much to trust those existing ones... and already they do more than I can utilize them (for writing code)

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 06/09/2026

What’s the problem w using LLMs to write stuff you want other people to read -emails, articles, posts- and why are people (like me!) so incredibly hostile that they will block you/mute you/block your domain, to never read anything from you again? Bryan spells it out. Read it:

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 03/09/2026

Write about how software engineering is changing inside your company / team / project. Don’t use AI. Win $10K and get published in The Pragmatic Engineer. You have a month: submit by 4 October. Details: blog.pragmaticengineer.com/how-software...

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 02/09/2026

Excited to share the amazing companies sponsoring The Pragmatic Engineer Podcast the fall: turbopuffer is our presenting sponsor. How the company started is epic: founder Simon Eskildsen told Cursor he can reduce their database bill by 95%... and he did (!!) turbopuffer.com/pragmatic (cont'd)

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 02/09/2026

Still find it so wild that SO MANY European banks schedule 1-2x per month 4-8 hour maintenance windows between 10pm-6am local time. INSTEAD of biting the bullet and learning how to do zero downtime migrations & infra upgrades Devs pull all-nighters instead + learn nothing about modern engineering

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 01/09/2026

Five years ago, almost exactly to the day, I launched @pragmaticengineer.com Back then, it wasn't clear that there'd be demand for a publication written by a software engineer, for software engineers. Turns out, there was, and far more than I could have ever imagined. Thanks for your support!

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 01/09/2026

Just heard: Meta is moving from GChat (Google's Chat product) to Slack, because... Slack has much better agent interoperability (true) Who thought AI+agents would be a big selling point for Slack? Or that Google would sleep on agents + GChat! Or that Meta used GChat, deprecating Workchat…

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 26/08/2026

Few people care more about performant code than @cmuratori.bsky.social. Casey is a down-to-earth programmer, game dev, performance nerd. A refreshing episode about why the basics (still) matter, and why learning to read Assembly remains useful for anyone who cares about performance: (cont'd)

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 26/08/2026

Well this is damning and explains SO MUCH about why Meta is losing its best engineers; why morale is rock-bottom; and why an engineering culture built up in 20 years was destroyed overnight. Zuck + execs wanted to lay off ~60% of staff. When the business does better than ever.

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 21/08/2026

Hard to believe but there was a time when smoking was promoted to be healthy / harmless, even, pregnant women encouraged to smoke, 1920s-1950s. Took ~30 years (!!) to figure out how harmful it was. How long will it take to figure out the impact of AI on health, for those using it all day?

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 20/08/2026

@brettcodes.bsky.social appreciated watching your video on why you stopped using AI. Recently talked with Casey Muratori who also doesn't use it. Could I message you somewhere? Or you can also send me DM.

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 19/08/2026

If you’ve ever opened Chrome DevTools, or optimized a page for Core Web Vitals, you’ve used software built by @addyosmani.bsky.social. We start from when he built a web browser from scratch, at 16, through his 14 years at Google, to what he sees working (and not working) building software with AI:

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 14/08/2026

This is such a cool list, published by Brex, based on startups' newsletter spending patterns. The Pragmatic Engineer one of the most frequently expensed newsletters, and it was, indeed, massive growth within startups over the last year: Thank you to everyone reading and supporting!

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 14/08/2026

It's now the second blog post in a day sent over by an early-stage VC-startup I tried to read, but could NOT, after a few sentences. Verbose, weird... AI-generated. These companies think they made "content" more efficient. No: it's lower quality, slop +I no longer care about the startup

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 13/08/2026

In 2025, it was rational to be skeptical about whether AI would change the future of software development. In 2026, it's not, anymore: We talked about this with @charity.wtf, one of my favorite voices in tech. We get into a LOT of things: • YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=HC8T... (cont'd)

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 13/08/2026

What I'm hearing from ~3 such stories: Meta went too far firing people. They are now doing MASSIVE counter-offers like to those handing in resignations. Some accept it, most just use it for more $$ at New Job, desperate to get out. It was such a predictable outcome btw:

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 12/08/2026

I’m used to AI slop on LinkedIn, but not to AI slop by folks with impressive professional background. Saw a fully AI-written post from an ex-VPE at Microsoft (15 years there) and decided to say what many think when they see AI nonsense, but usually just scroll by.

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 11/08/2026

Bought a new Dyson fan, set it up connected to the Wifi, and then it suddenly turned off for minutes, unable to turn back on. Turns out, it was spontaneously updating itself. This is not how a household appliance should update, I’m sorry… why do we accept such sloppiness?

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 11/08/2026

Interesting to see how any and all mid-sized and above companies who take the "AI opportunity window" seriously have all built their own internal agent platform and one or more of agentic coding harness, agent sandboxing, model hosting, evals platform Building AI infra > buying right now

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 10/08/2026

If you work in tech, you'll want to read the ~40-page short novel, Profession, by Isaac Asimov. If the availability of intelligence was instant, and learning things the "hard way" was considered a waste: what would the things most valued by society be? Hard to believe it's a 1957 novel.

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 09/08/2026

Google Workspace's ads for paying customers could not get any more annoying I DO NOT USE AI AT ALL and I get upsells to "expand my AI access" WTH. I want ZERO Gemini for my Workspaces suite, this is some bad joke. Even if you pay you get ads, just so maddening with Google

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 09/08/2026

Recent trend I'm hearing about: coaching demand for engineering leaders (done by experienced eng leads offering paid coaching) is picking up after the last ~2 years being pretty quiet. Clearly to do w rapid industry change, and lots of folks strategizing "how do I thrive?"

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 06/08/2026

@simon-hill.bsky.social hey Simon - ai cannot DM you but wanted to let you know someone is impersonating you on X. Tried to report the account but cannot do so because the impersonated account needs to be on that site. Warned others on X: x.com/gergelyorosz...

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Gergely Orosz (@GergelyOrosz) on X

Yet another scam account pretending to be a journalist: @SimonHill_ The real Simon Hill has no X account. The scam is about sending a calendly-like link to take over your Google account Avoid respo...

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 05/08/2026

Interesting to see so many apps / companies launching with the positioning to gather CONTEXT in a single space. Pitches like: "work is scattered across many apps / websites / windows. What if..." "you keep moving between tools / sites / docs to get your work done. What if..."

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 02/08/2026

One of the easiest ways to stand out when writing or creating videos or posting: DONT. USE. AI. Suddenly you sound distinctively different from 80%+ ppl who do and output the same verbose + nicely formatted stuff that feels all the same (+ most ppl stop paying attention midway)

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 02/08/2026

A senior software engineer identifying as a “creator” working at an e-commerce company sent an AI-written email, asking to recommend their Substack. I checked out a few articles. All are… slop. Stuff that feels like it was output from ChatGPT. It’s all AI. My response:

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 29/07/2026

There’s a popular theory that AI will finally make formal verification mainstream because mathematical proof of correctness will be needed when machines write most or all of the code. But will this happen? Hillel Wayne is one of the best people to answer: • YouTube: youtu.be/KSkcgIYQy0U (cont'd)

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 28/07/2026

So many interesting details. Here's one: "One thing I’ve heard from some people is “we have two humans and a bunch of agents.” I reply that this isn’t where we’re at: we still have teams with 6-8 people on average." - Katelyn Lesse, Head of Engineering, Claude Platform, Anthropic

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 27/07/2026

Interesting trend: CTO/ Head of Eng / VPE folks at startups and mid-sized companies are... leaving / burning out. Hiring for these roles is HARD, but even after filling the role, they will often leave a few months later and take a career break And they have v good reasons

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 27/07/2026

Meta's performance review culture is becoming very problematic for its engineering culture. I said this a month ago in @pragmaticengineer.com (screenshot #1), and Semi Analysis said the same last week (screenshot #2). Engineers at Meta are world-class at optimizing for PSC...

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 23/07/2026

From a friend who joined a fast-growth, later-stage startup: "I was wondering why no one is doing PRDs here. Then I realized that the Head of Product and most PMs are 25-year-olds who don't have the attention span to *read* even a 1-page doc. You lose them after 3 bullet points."

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 22/07/2026

OK this made my life easier: my backend (for my admin portal) had an error popping up, and Sentry was bugging me about it. Sentry now built an AI agent (called "Seer") that can analyze the root cause, make a plan to fix, draft a fix, then open a PR. Just pushed it to prod after review!

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 21/07/2026

These Google Workspace ads (for *paying* customers!) are driving me crazy I don't know why I would need a "virtual receptionist", what "Voice Standard" is, who "my callers" are, and why I would need to "guide them automatically" Is Google Workspace losing its mind? What next: proper ads?

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 20/07/2026

OK this is a HILARIOUS story I heard from inside Meta: You know when Director+ folks post AI slop as "thought leader" posts? But everyone is too polite to say anything. Happened a ton inside Meta's internal "LinkedIn" (Workplace**) BUT morale is so low that lots of devs no longer gave a damn. So:

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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 17/07/2026

My kids keep pointing out how so many ads involving kids are AI-generated. This is one example from a government agency. It’s in so many other places as well tho with kids’ posters Kids that look more like adults, have 4 fingers…is this the “modern” advertising? All AI?

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