That Test isn't Flaky. It's Broken. - In the era of AI agents, basic software engineering matters more, not less. Will Keleher argues for zero tolerance for intermittently failing tests: rare failures compound as the suite grows, and once reruns become a habit, nobody notices a broken test. Tests are the feedback loop agents rely on, and an agent can't tell an "acceptable" flaky failure from a real one. Keleher also found that agents tended to fix these tests by adding guards or sleeps rather than fixing the root cause. Agents amplify whatever engineering discipline your codebase already has.
https://will-keleher.com/posts/its-broken-not-flaky
Ownership - Another engineering basic that agents make more important. Thorsten Ball's checklist covers defining the problem, edge cases, testing, deployment, communication, and follow-up. Agents can help with many of these, but they don't own any of them. Ball's warning holds no matter who wrote the code: "what's not okay is to implicitly assume that someone else will do the things here that you haven't thought about." That someone else is not your agent.
https://registerspill.thorstenball.com/p/ownership
I Love My Job and It's Exhausting - A post about the hidden cost of engineering management. The exhaustion doesn't come from long hours but from carrying the team's problems and a brain that never switches off. "Nobody warns you that loving your job doesn't make it less heavy." Lately I see this exhaustion even more often, as we're expected to keep agents running around the clock and be 10x more productive.
https://www.codecabin.dev/post/i-love-my-job-and-its-exhausting
Nine Questions I Now Ask in Interviews That I Wish I'd Asked Five Years Ago - Many people are interviewing these days. Remember that an interview goes both ways, so use it to interview the other side too. Louise Deason suggests using the "do you have any questions for us?" part to learn what the careers page won't tell you. My favorite is "Can you walk me through the last time someone in this team got promoted?" - I recently asked a version of it as a candidate, and the answer made me feel confident about the team. As a hiring manager, if I can't answer these questions well, that tells me something about my own team.
https://louisedeason.substack.com/p/nine-questions-i-now-ask-in-interviews
People Frameworks - Mike Fisher on the mental models leaders use to interpret behavior: presume competence and positive intent, and look at constraints before character. When someone struggles, the cause is more often the system around them than who they are. "The stories leaders tell themselves about people become self-fulfilling systems."