The Balanced Engineer • Issue #41
The Balanced Engineer Newsletter
ovember 2025 • Issue # 41
Before we get to the good stuff–a change I'm making! After reflecting on what's sustainable (and what energizes me), I'm moving to a monthly newsletter. This lets me spend real time curating insights and writing the pieces I care about, rather than rushing to hit a weekly deadline. You'll still get the same thoughtful content, just once a month with the best of what I've discovered.
🔧 Technical Excellence
Vibe Engineering by Simon Willison
I’ve been thinking an awful lot about maximizing my time with coding agents recently, which makes this article very timely!
One of the most key points I’ve gathered from this article is the importance of staging environments in the world of coding agents. This is something that I have a lot of thoughts about improving for the primary codebases that I currently work in. Having an ability to quickly test what coding agents produce, without having to setup a development environment, is critical to making these coding agent tasks actually more efficient.
There were many other bits of wisdom in this article and I highly recommend it!
🧠 Mental Models & Problem Solving
I was recently introduced to Robby Russell, who is the host of the Maintainable podcast, and decided to give this episode a listen first to get familiar with the podcast. I’m so glad that I did!
This episode was incredibly insightful. Chris talks about how he goes about joining new teams, getting up to speed on their problems, and helping the team prioritize the solutions to work on.
It was incredibly well done and was a wonderful listen for anyone interested in learning how to best prioritize large engineering efforts!
What I've Been Building
A quick look at what I've been working on this month
Talks
Overcommitted Podcast
- Ep. 28 | From Engineer to Entrepreneur with Brad Heller
- This is an overview of Brad’s journey into the world of software engineering and startups, including a successful exit and a new startup he’s just getting going on.
- Ep. 29 | Building Search Infrastructure Developers Actually Want to Use with Don MacKinnon
- Another founder overview of the perils of startup life.
- Ep. 30 | What all developers should know with Thomas Dohmke
- It’s not every day you get to interview the CEO of one of the largest and most influential tech companies in the world 👀
- Ep. 31 | Finding Your Flow - Developer Productivity and The Zone
- A one-on-one discussion between Erika and I about developer productivity and what helps you stay in the “zone”.
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