A Practical Guide To Coding Securely With LLMs
- Sean Goedecke tl;dr: “I haven’t been particularly impressed by most online content about LLMs and security. For instance, the draft OWASP content is accurate but not particularly useful. It portrays LLM security as being a wide array of different threats that you have to familiarize yourself with. Instead, I think LLM security is better thought of as flowing from a single principle. Here it is: LLMs sometimes act maliciously, so you must treat LLM output like user input.”featured in #608
What I'd Do As A College Freshman In 2025
- Murat Demirbas tl;dr: “Tech rewards leverage, not shortcuts. Optimize for momentum and stack useful skills, relationships, and systems. Compounding is the strongest force in your career.Don’t chase trends. Understand them. Ride the ones that match your strengths. Learn to take a step back, and aim for depth, clarity, and direction.”featured in #607
featured in #607
featured in #606
Dangerous Advice For Software Engineers
- Sean Goedecke tl;dr: “I’m a big fan of “sharp tools”. These are tools that are powerful enough to be hugely helpful or harmful, depending on how they’re used. Most forms of direct production access are in this category: like ssh or kubectl access, a read-write prod SQL console. It’s also possible to give “dangerous advice”. Dangerous advice is dangerous because (like sharp tools) it takes competence and judgment to use well. Giving the wrong person dangerous advice is like giving the wrong person production SQL access - they might go off and do something enormously destructive with it.”featured in #606
Dangerous Advice For Software Engineers
- Sean Goedecke tl;dr: “I’m a big fan of “sharp tools”. These are tools that are powerful enough to be hugely helpful or harmful, depending on how they’re used. Most forms of direct production access are in this category: like ssh or kubectl access, a read-write prod SQL console. It’s also possible to give “dangerous advice”. Dangerous advice is dangerous because (like sharp tools) it takes competence and judgment to use well. Giving the wrong person dangerous advice is like giving the wrong person production SQL access - they might go off and do something enormously destructive with it.”featured in #605
The Reality Of Tech Interviews in 2025
- Gergely Orosz Evan King Stefan Mai tl;dr: It’s been widely reported that the tech hiring market is much cooler than in 2020-2022; the number of software engineering job openings is down internationally in all major regions and the number of full-remote roles is in steady decline. Meanwhile, other metrics indicate that tech hiring is starting to recover – at least for senior engineers. This article is an attempt to get clarity about how tech interviews are changing, by focusing on what the engineers who take interviews are seeing.featured in #605
The Reality Of Tech Interviews in 2025
- Gergely Orosz Evan King Stefan Mai tl;dr: It’s been widely reported that the tech hiring market is much cooler than in 2020-2022; the number of software engineering job openings is down internationally in all major regions and the number of full-remote roles is in steady decline. Meanwhile, other metrics indicate that tech hiring is starting to recover – at least for senior engineers. This article is an attempt to get clarity about how tech interviews are changing, by focusing on what the engineers who take interviews are seeing.featured in #604
Tactical Work In The Age Of Layoffs
- Sean Goedecke tl;dr: “In the glory days of the 2010s, tech companies were very invested in their employees’ work-life balance. Those glory days are over. Anecdotally, tech company executives are now internally directing their employees to work harder and faster, with the new threat of layoffs adding weight to that directive. Engineers are rightfully scared. What should we do?”featured in #604
Tactical Work In The Age Of Layoffs
- Sean Goedecke tl;dr: “In the glory days of the 2010s, tech companies were very invested in their employees’ work-life balance. Those glory days are over. Anecdotally, tech company executives are now internally directing their employees to work harder and faster, with the new threat of layoffs adding weight to that directive. Engineers are rightfully scared. What should we do?”featured in #603