InfoQ Homepage Culture & Methods Content on InfoQ
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Levelling Yourself up as a Software Engineer While Climbing through the Ranks
As software engineers grow into senior, Staff+, or principal roles, they take on greater responsibility, complex projects, and influence beyond code, Suhail Patel explained in his talk about growing oneself as a software engineer at QCon London. Growth isn’t linear; it requires mastering communication, strategy, and soft influence. Writing, speaking, and 1:1s can help to expand impact.
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How NASA Tests Their Software for the Space Shuttle and the Orion MPCV
NASA uses multiple testing levels, independent validation, standards, safety communities, and tools to ensure safety. Darrel Raines gave a talk about software development and testing for the Space Shuttle and the Orion MPCV. He explained how they learn from failures and near misses and continually improve their process.
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How Figma Uses AI to Support, Not Replace, the Designer
Figma has integrated AI across its design platform, from small tools like auto-naming layers to Figma Make, which can turn a text prompt, image, or design frame into production-ready code that teams can edit together in real time.
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How Empathy-Driven Platform Teams Can Support Software Development
Building empathy and understanding for product developers help platform teams figure out where to draw the boundaries of their scope to provide better support, Erin Doyle mentioned in her talk about empathy-driven platforms at InfoQ Dev Summit Boston.
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How Amazon Uses Guardrails in Software Development
Carlos Arguelles spoke about Amazon’s inflection points in engineering productivity at QCon San Francisco, where he explained that shift testing left can help catch issues early. He suggested using guardrails such as code reviews and coverage checks. Your repo strategy, monorepo or multirepo, will impact the guardrails that need to be in place.
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Kubernetes Introduces Post-Quantum Support for TLS
A recent Kubernetes enhancement aims to pave the way to future-proofing cluster security against quantum computing threats. In a blog post, the Kubernetes community highlighted support for post-quantum cryptography (PQC) via a hybrid key exchange mechanism integrated with the Kubernetes Key Management Service (KMS) plugin system.
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How Inclusive Leadership Can Drive Lasting Success in Tech Organizations
Inclusion isn’t something you do once; it should be woven into everything, from how you make decisions to how you structure teams and run meetings.. When people feel seen and heard, they contribute more fully and meaningfully, which sustains long-term success. Matthew Card gave a presentation about leading with an inclusive-first mindset at Qcon London.
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How to Build Secure Software without Sacrificing Productivity
Security can clash with development efficiency. Focusing on minimizing breach impact can be more effective than prevention. Dorota Parad argues for flexibility in compliance and collaborating with security teams to define practical protections. Limiting blast radius and using automation can boost security with minimal productivity loss.
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How Pair Programming Enhanced Development Speed, Focus, and Flow
Ola Hast and Asgaut Mjølne Söderbom gave a talk about continuous delivery with pair programming at QCon London. Their team uses pair and mob programming with TDD; there are no solo tasks or separate code reviews. This approach boosts code quality, reduces waste, and enables the sharing of knowledge. Frequent breaks help to maintain focus and flow.
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From C to Rust: inside Meta’s Developer-Led Messaging Migration
Meta has begun rewriting its mobile messaging infrastructure in Rust, gradually replacing a legacy C codebase that engineers say had become increasingly difficult to maintain and frustrating to work with.
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Experiences from Using AI as a Software Architect
Artificial intelligence excels at refining language and processing large text volumes, but lacks human-like contextual reasoning and emotional intelligence, Avraham Poupko said. Many human traits come into play when doing software architecture. As an architect, he suggests using AI for exploring tradeoffs and refining language with clarity and precision.
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The Rise of Energy and Water Consumption Using AI Models, and How It Can Be Reduced
Artificial intelligence's (AI) energy and water consumption has become a growing concern in the tech industry, particularly for large-scale machine learning models and data centers. Sustainable AI focuses on making AI technology more environmentally friendly and socially responsible.
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How Software Engineers Can Grow Their Career
To grow their career, Bruno Rey suggests that software engineers should develop ambition, increase their capacity, and seek opportunities. He advises being proactive, broadening your influence by learning from peers, and stepping outside your comfort zone. Software engineers can keep a brag doc to ensure that their work is visible and plan their growth with realistic long-term goals.
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DevSummit Boston: Humans in the Loop: Engineering Leadership in a Chaotic Industry
At the InfoQ Dev Summit, Google’s Engineering Director Michelle Brush addressed software leaders, emphasizing the evolving landscape of software engineering amidst rising automation. She championed a shift toward higher-level cognitive skills, systems thinking, and foundational knowledge, urging engineers to embrace complexity for enhanced resilience and decision-making in their work.
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Applying Observability to Leadership to Understand and Explain your Way of Working
Leadership observability means observing yourself as you lead, treating yourself as the system that is under observation. Alex Schladebeck shared how narrating thoughts, using mind maps, asking questions, and identifying patterns helped her as a leader to explain decisions, check bias, support others, and understand her actions and challenges.