Issue #690
Essential Reading For Engineering Leaders
Friday 13th February issue is presented by WorkOS
Ship Third-Party Integrations Without Rebuilding OAuth
Connecting user accounts to third-party APIs always comes with the same plumbing: OAuth flows, token storage, refresh logic, and provider-specific quirks.
WorkOS Pipes removes that overhead. Users connect services like GitHub, Slack, Google, Salesforce, and other supported providers through a drop-in widget. Your backend requests a valid access token from the Pipes API when needed, while Pipes handles credential storage and token refresh.
14 More Lessons From 14 Years At Google
— Addy Osmani
tl;dr: “Some of the hardest lessons I’ve learned aren’t about how you work. They’re about how teams work: how decisions actually get made, where coordination breaks down, what separates the groups that ship from the ones that spin.”
CareerAdvice
Work Expands. Time Vanishes. Here’s Why.
— Michał Poczwardowski
tl;dr: “I’ve witnessed teams hiding real deadlines from each other. Afraid that if developers knew the real date, work would expand to fill it (Parkinson), while still taking longer than expected (Hofstadter).”
Leadership Management
The Enterprise Infrastructure Behind Successful AI Apps
tl;dr: Most AI apps fail to reach production not because of models, but because they lack enterprise infrastructure. This article breaks down the foundations teams need to scale AI responsibly, including identity, access control, auditability, and compliance.
Promoted by WorkOS
Tools AI
Why Am I Doing The Thinking For You?
— Matheus Lima
tl;dr: “When you ask someone “what do you think?” without sharing what you think, you’re not collaborating, but more like outsourcing? You’re taking all the work you should have done and dumping it on someone else’s lap.”
CareerAdvice
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” — Anais Nin
Programming Aphorisms
— Alex Kladov
tl;dr: “A meta programming post - looking at my thought process when coding and trying to pin down what is programming “knowledge”. Turns out, a significant fraction of that is just reducing new problems to a vocabulary of known tricks.”
ThoughtPiece
The Web Search API For AI Apps, Agents, And LLMs In 2026
— Hilman Ramadhan
tl;dr: Build AI apps without scraping headaches. Learn how a Web Search API extends model knowledge, delivers real-time data, and gives you full control and flexibility.
Promoted by SerpApi
Search API AI
How to Make Architecture Decisions: RFCs, ADRs, and Getting Everyone Aligned
— Lukas Niessen
tl;dr: “Architecture decisions are different from regular code decisions. They’re harder to reverse, they affect more people, and they often involve trade-offs that aren’t purely technical. You need buy-in. You need the right people in the room.”
Architecture
Two Kinds Of AI Users Are Emerging. The Gap Between Them Is Astonishing.
— Martin Alderson
tl;dr: “It still shocks me how much difference there is between AI users. I think it explains a lot about the often confusing coverage in the media about AI and its productivity impact.”
Management Leadership AI
Using An Engineering Notebook
— Nicole Tietz-Sokolskaya
tl;dr: “One of my core software engineering practices is writing, by hand, in a physical notebook. It’s one of the most important things I do to remain productive and effective. Maybe the single most important.”
CareerAdvice
Most Popular From Last Issue
Running 1:1s For Engineers - Can Duruk
Notable Links
Homarr: Modern and easy to use dashboard.
Gh-aw: GitHub agentic workflows.
LangExtract: Structured information from unstructured text.
QMD: CLI search engine for your docs.
Swark: Create architecture diagrams from code automatically using LLMs.