To build a unicorn company you need risk-tolerance and data — “If you aren’t willing to take that leap now, then when are you willing to?” He thinks to himself. After completing one year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he continued to interview for summer internship opportunities and received positive feedback from DeepMind, Stripe, Snapchat, and Opendoor. But now…

Ask the questions, do root cause analysis, and more — “How can I get better at solving problems? I understand JavaScript now, but I can’t really solve problems or understand any complicated JavaScript code,” asked me recently young developer on my contact list. Problem-solving is a critical element of our careers because writing great code is a creative art, and…

A guide to using sarcasm as a literary device — We all know the feeling: It’s Friday, 3 PM, and you just want to watch a mindless sitcom with your significant other. You have this in mind for weeks, and it is an experience that will be shared between two (hopefully) laughing individuals. The evening has arrived and you get…

6 Tips on snappy and efficient writing — Engaging writing catches the audience and reaches them on a deeper level. Repeated sentence structures, passive voice, and poor words, however, are common red-flag signs used by inexperienced writers that make their content sounds boring. Whether you’re just starting with writing or already have some experience, if your pieces don’t…

What does a cloud architecture look like and what do AWS developers actually do? I’m here to tell you. — 07:30 a.m. My alarm clock rings. I wake up. I don’t have to get ready for a commute as I used to in the past, since I’m working remotely. I start my day by preparing breakfast for my toddler and setting it in his kindergarten pack. 08:40 a.m. I stand with my feet together…

Exploring hands-on patterns of modern software development like feature toggles and canary releases — If you have been doing web development for a few days, chances are you have heard of cloud computing and microservices. Unlike monolithic applications, which are built as single, large units, in a microservices architecture, we decompose a big application into a set of small, independent pieces that we can…

Cutting through modern systems architectures and requirements — Scene 1: In the wee hours of the morning, Rakia fired up her MacBook. She opened the browser and looked for something interesting to read. She scrolled past articles about new software releases. She scrolled past articles about machine learning. She scrolled past articles about AWS. She was about to bounce over…

And effective solutions to overcome these obstacles — It’s a hot sunny day in August 2010, and the clock is striking eight. I’m standing in front of the Bigpoint office in Hamburg with my daily croissant in my hand. I put my employee badge on the reader to unlock the door, then head to my desk next to…

“War is 90% information.” — Napoleon Bonaparte — As I have started writing this article, I didn’t expect it to end this way. Weeks after creating my first draft, Russian forces entered its western neighbor’s border and war raged in Ukraine. Many questions have been raised. People around the world kept their eyes glued to their screens, waiting…