Big Tech Digest #21 💥
Featuring articles from Airbnb, Shopify, Dropbox, Deliveroo, and many more!
Happy Tuesday 👋 and welcome to Big Tech Digest #21.
This week, we have a batch of the latest articles published since the last issue.
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Without further ado, let’s get started!
// 🏆 Must reads
"Somebody is in the room — did we just interview ChatGPT?"
by Máté Börcsök ⸱ Prezi ⸱ 4 min read ⸱ 09 Jul
The author describes an unusual interview where the candidate’s responses seemed too perfect, suspecting AI usage. He suggests practical tips for detecting AI answers, including signs to look for and questions to ask. A must-read for those of you who conduct engineering interviews!
"A Team Leader’s Conviction: Bringing AI to a Team of Skeptics."
by Itai Schuftan ⸱ Wix ⸱ 1 min read ⸱ 03 Jul
No description required, this is a must-read if you’re in this position ;)
"How To Ask For Help"
by Malcolm Young ⸱ Capgemini ⸱ 6 min read ⸱ 04 Jul
This was an interesting read. The title is self-explanatory and I don’t want to spoiler, so please go ahead and read it!
// 📬 Optional reads
The Best of the Rest!
"Scaling recommendations service at OLX"
by Jordi Esteve Sorribas ⸱ OLX ⸱ 10 min read ⸱ 08 Jul
The article describes an optimization journey of a recommendations service at OLX, which relies on FastAPI and Python. Challenges included async programming, data validation, and garbage collection. Result: p99 latency under 10ms and 50% throughput increase. Really impressive.
For the key lessons learned, I encourage you to read the source.
"From 60 Repos to One: How Wix Tackled Monorepo Migration - Part2"
Wix ⸱ 5 min read ⸱ 03 Jul
The author explains how Wix tackled monorepo migration by reducing build durations using target selection, graph-based approach, and additional optimizations.
"Tactical Coding Assistants"
by Pieter Tolsma ⸱ Booking ⸱ 6 min read ⸱ 03 Jul
Author shares observations on current state of coding assistants discussing the potential pitfalls of overly relying on AI for tactical tasks. The article emphasizes the importance of keeping the AI on a short leash and maintaining control over the software architecture. The author provides examples of tactical vs strategic prompts and their impact on code quality.
"Understanding and Improving SwiftUI Performance"
by Cal Stephens ⸱ Airbnb ⸱ 8 min read ⸱ 24 Jun
The article discusses techniques like view diffing, controlling diffing with @Equatable macro, managing view body complexity, and a custom SwiftLint rule to measure view complexity. Applying these has led to a large reduction in unnecessary view re-evaluation and re-renders.
"Remixing Shopify's Admin: How We Made It 30% Faster and AI-Ready"
by Craig Brunner ⸱ Shopify ⸱ 6 min read ⸱ 30 Jun
The use of route manifests, Remix loaders, and prefetching allowed for a consistent, beautiful loading experience and supercharged Sidekick with Remix actions. This means 30% faster page loads for merchants and a more responsive and consistent Admin. If you’re into Remix, this is a must-read for sure!
"Introducing Roast: Structured AI Workflows Made Easy"
by Obie Fernandez ⸱ Shopify ⸱ 8 min read ⸱ 18 Jun
Roast provides a declarative approach using YAML configuration and markdown prompts, allowing for reproducible, testable workflows. It combines “deterministic” and “AI” steps, and includes a variety of built-in tools and features.
"The 95% Breakthrough: Ditching RAG for MAG in Wix's AI-Powered Data Discovery"
Wix ⸱ 4 min read ⸱ 09 Jul
Author shows us how MAG led to a better accuracy, contextual awareness, and scalability, but also presented challenges such as cost and speed.
"Popular Gradle mistakes (and how to avoid them) - part 3"
Allegro ⸱ 3 min read ⸱ 14 Jul
Authors share favorite Gradle plugins to avoid common mistakes: Integration Test Plugin, Test Logger plugin, Axion Release Plugin, Dependency Graph Generator, Typesafe Conventions, Binary Compatibility Validator. Each plugin offers practical solutions for different challenges.
"How Zendesk Engineers Transformed Infrastructure Provisioning"
by Vishnupriya Varadarajan ⸱ Zendesk ⸱ 6 min read ⸱ 19 Jun
This article introduces us to Zendesks’s self-service infrastructure. This revolves around the concept of genie helpers: gatekeeper, orchestrator, watchdog, and wish alchemist to streamline the process. All in all, this led to a way more efficient infrastructure provisioning.
"Cracking the Code: Boosting Airflow Efficiency Through Airflow Configuration Tuning & Optimisation"
by Nishchay Agarwal ⸱ Walmart ⸱ 17 min read ⸱ 26 Jun
Author discusses deep dive into Airflow performance improvement, addressing issues such as DAG parsing time, task queuing, and worker pool utilization. Optimizing environment settings, handling top-level Python code, and managing Celery worker queue and slots are key strategies to enhance Airflow performance.
"Deliveroo's Machine Learning Platform: Powering the Future of ML"
Deliveroo ⸱ 4 min read ⸱ 02 Jul
The article walks us thorugh the development of Deliveroo’s Machine Learning Platform, covering the standarization of ML workflows, model deployment, and reducing time spent on infrastructure tasks for ML engineers.
"Making file encryption fast and secure for teams with advanced key management"
by Alok Ranjan,Wesley Rodriguez ⸱ Dropbox ⸱ 7 min read ⸱ 10 Jul
Authors share how they developed an advanced key management solution for team-based file encryption at Dropbox. They discuss the technical challenges faced, the three-tiered encryption scheme they implemented, and additional considerations such as key caching, rotation, and chain of custody to ensure secure and efficient encryption.
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