Unit testing is a methodology where units of code are tested in isolation from the rest of the application. A unit test might test a particular function, object, class, or module. Unit tests are great to learn whether or not individual parts of an application work. …

Interview resources, build your own X, a list of great public APIs, and more — If you want to learn more about tech, subscribe to my brand new YouTube Channel, where I explain complex topics in a crisp & sharp way to skill you up! → https://www.youtube.com/@litwire GitHub is the number one platform for sharing all kinds of technologies, frameworks, libraries, and collections of all…

And which one should I choose? If you are like me, the first time you went to create a Dockerfile and had to choose an image from the DockerHub page, you were thoroughly confused. Sometimes choices like this can freeze us up from acting, so maybe we just go with…

tldr; Processes in a container should not run as root, or assume that they are root. Instead, create a user in your Dockerfile with a known UID and GID, and run your process as this user. Images that follow this pattern are easier to run securely by limiting access to resources. Overview …

Consider product engineers — Ok, I know, the title might sound bold but this article is not about the outsourcing of your development team or increasing consultants, not at all. I recently read several articles about the “10x Developers”, and everything I read was very insightful; anyway what I read mostly has a take…

Advanced tips and tricks that will save you time and headaches. — When I started on my DevOps journey, I was blissfully unaware of everything ahead of me. Yet, after years of working closely with some highly talented developers, I begin to hit my stride. It’s incredible how much you can learn sitting next to a senior developer who gives you the…

We Are Surrounded by Miserable Mediocre Programmers — Programmers hate being called mediocre. No programmer wants to be called a mediocre programmer. Every programmer wants to be called an expert in their domain. But the reality is that we are surrounded by mediocre developers who claim to be experts. Also, mediocrity is contagious. If you, as a developer…

Lately I’ve been doing the Githug tutorial to improve my Git skills. I’ve learned a lot of new Git commands while solving the problems or answering to the questions that you are asked in the tutorial (some of which rather hard!) The toughest question I had to deal with —…

Automated testing during software development involves many different techniques, one that shouldn’t be used is mocking. Mocks are a distraction at best and provide false confidence at worst. What is Mocking? It is common for software developers to use mocks to simulate behaviour of code for network calls to other services or for…

One of the many horrible consequences of the whiteboard coding interview process has been Code Golf. Developers aspiring to snag a coveted FAANG job spend endless hours on sites like Leetcode. …

I said both are different skills. — I am far from being good at mathematics. For example, I have always had great difficulty calculating a limit or a derivative. I am also of a rather average level in equations, and I have always had trouble with trigonometric functions in geometry. On the other hand, I don’t understand…

A Focused Study Guide — System design interview questions separate junior and senior engineering roles. They’re difficult to prepare for because, unlike algorithm questions, they don’t boil down to a handful of prescribed patterns. Instead, they draw upon a vast ocean of technical knowledge and experience. …

Software engineers engage in code reviews daily. Some teams have a great code review process. Others could use improvement. Here are 3 signs of a bad code review process, and how your team can ship better software, faster. 3 signs of a bad code review process 🚩 If code reviews make you, or other developers, anxious. Likely, reviewers aren’t prioritizing kindness. Or they’re on a power trip, gatekeeping…

I was a software development engineer at Amazon Web Services for 6 years. I started as an intern. I grew to be a tech lead for various teams and projects. During my time at AWS, I directly mentored over a dozen junior software engineers. …

Frustration tolerance. — Software development also means debugging software. So recently I had a bug that I was called in on and the developer who found the bug went on standby after two hours of searching. I had meanwhile found out that the bug depends on the number of local variables. In the…

I was pretty happy when I joined a mobile product company around 5 years ago. They were using cutting-edge libraries and frameworks that were quite famous. Some examples included: Protocol buffers to ensure efficient TCP-based data transfer AES algorithm to encrypt on-device data The ever-latest mobile UI frameworks (both iOS…

Learn the must-have skills to grow as a successful senior software engineer — Every software developer wants to grow in their career and become a senior one day. However, most of them don’t know what it takes to become a senior software engineer. I am not talking about ‘Senior Software Engineer’ as a designation. Designations in different companies mean different things. …

In a world with an ever-increasing amount of tech jobs and an equivalent amount of tech workers, it can be hard to stand-out as a software developer and become successful. Successful software developers work on the coolest projects in dynamic environments; sparring with architects from different teams, advising product owners…