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Do you need an expensive home studio to be a successful software engineer? Short answer: absolutely not. Long answer: When I’m home, I definitely act like I do 😄 I’ve got the whole setup: Elgato microphone, webcam, lights, Apple Studio Display, an ergonomic desk, all the toys. And honestly? I love it. But here’s the fun part: For 6 months of the year I work fully remotely while traveling the world - using nothing but a 13-inch laptop, a tiny keyboard, a mouse, and AirPods. All of it fits into a 10L backpack. I’ve tried travel monitors, but carrying them around cities, airports, cafes and coworking spaces? Total hassle. I always ended up ditching them. And the thing is, whether I'm at home or in travel, my productivity doesn't really change. Otherwise, I'd probably get fired long time ago instead of getting promoted regularly and always aiming for the overachiever badge. Turns out it’s not the gear - it’s the habits, focus and environment you build for yourself. For anyone living a digital nomad life or planning long-term travel: 👉 What’s the minimum setup you’d be comfortable working with for a few months? Curious to hear how light (or how heavy) you pack 🎒

If I had to restart my career in software engineering tomorrow, these are the books I’d bring with me to reach the top. They shaped how I think, design systems, debug problems, and grow in this industry. 📖 1. The Software Engineer's Guidebook by @Gergely Orosz The best engineering career book I’ve ever read, period. Gergely (known for @The Pragmatic Engineer newsletter) distills the lessons, patterns, and realities of growing in engineering - from junior to staff+. I genuinely wish this existed when I started. 📖 2. Designing Data-Intensive Applications by @Martin Kleppmann This book is a paradigm shift for anyone building software that handles real-world data. Kleppmann goes beyond database basics, breaking down how modern systems handle consistency, scaling, events, and failure - all with clear examples. It equips you with the mental models for architecting reliable backend systems and clarifies concepts you'll face in interviews and on actual projects. 📖 3. Unix and Linux: System Administration Handbook by Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder, @Trent Hein, @Ben Whaley, @Dan Mackin Every engineer benefits from knowing what’s happening beneath their framework or cloud provider. This is much more than a shell scripting guide - it's the toolkit for navigating, understanding, and mastering the core of Unix and Linux systems. It demystifies the operating system layer itself, from boot processes, permissions, and filesystems to user management, networking, security, troubleshooting, cloud deployments, and automation. This book delivers the practical know-how and big-picture understanding that lets you move confidently beneath the surface. 📖 4. Computer Networks: A Systems Approach by @Larry Peterson and @Bruce Davie Networking can seem opaque until you read this book - it’s where abstract protocols finally make sense as moving parts in real systems. Whether you’re building APIs or debugging something in the cloud, the lessons here repeatedly pay off and open up new perspectives on distributed design. This book is not easy - but once you finish it, you’ll finally understand what happens when you're making network requests. And if you want to go further, here are a few bonus titles I really value: 📖 1. The Staff Engineer's Path: A Guide for Individual Contributors Navigating Growth and Change by @Tanya Reilly 📖 2. System Design Interview: An Insider's Guide by @Alex Xu 📖 3. Software Engineering at Google: Lessons Learned from Programming Over Time by @Titus Winters, @Thomas Manshreck and @Hyrum Wright 📖 4. Crafting Interpreters by @Robert Nystrom 📖 5. Algorithms by Robert Sedgewick Together, these books build a deep, transferable, long-term foundation - the kind that matters across teams, tech stacks, and job titles. What would you add to the list? Which book shaped your engineering mindset the most?

I decided to start posting more regularly here, so a short introduction feels like a good place to begin. Hi! I’m Arek. I’ve been coding for about 18 years, which officially makes me an adult programmer. Ten of those years were commercial experience, the other eight were me breaking my parents’ computers and pretending it was "for learning purposes." Right now I work at Buffer - fully remote, fully distributed, and running on a four day workweek, which is basically a cheat code for life. Thanks to that I travel quite a bit as a digital nomad, although Warsaw is still my home base (and the place where I keep the cables I don’t need but refuse to throw away). Before Buffer I worked at Facebook (Meta, technically, but it's hard to make a switch) and Lufthansa. I also freelanced for a few years with international clients, which means I’ve experienced every timezone mismatch possible. If you ever want my take on things like: 🧑‍💻 building an IT career 🧑‍💻 working remotely or surviving a four day workweek 🧑‍💻 digital nomad life 🧑‍💻 freelancing without losing your sanity 🧑‍💻 or anything about engineering in general Just drop a comment. I love sharing my experiences!

Proud to have friends working on such cool startups, and cannot wait when I get to replace all my longevity/health apps with this single one. Rooting for you!

So you probably have heard about a term "golden handcuffs". Usually I heard it when someone talked about their ridiculous salary, when they'd like to change the job, but it doesn't really make economical sense, even if they're giving up something else, like flexibility, peace, whatever. What if I told you there's a company that pays well, you work 4 days a week on interesting projects, your colleagues are your true friends (and you probably haven't met so many lovely people at one place), there's no office - would you sign up for my kind of "golden handcuffs"? If your answer is yes, we've got a lot of openings at Buffer! 🌍 Engineering Manager 💰 $173.7K – $202.3K 🌍 3 Senior Software Engineer positions 💰 $156.5K – $202.3K 🌍 Senior Hiring Specialist 💰 $118.1K – $146.5K The interview takes time, and it's in some ways different than typical, but it's totally worth it - I know what I'm talking about, over 4 years in and still rejecting all the other offers I receive!

Going diving tomorrow after a few months break and I cannot wait. It's unbelievable how it's the only activity that makes my brain focus only on "now" and literally nothing else, no other thoughts come to mind until I surface.

💡 I recently discovered the biggest growth hack for LinkedIn followers, and thanks to that, my following has grown like crazy in the past weeks. And the secret is 🥁 🥁 🥁 Work in a company that everyone dreams about (@Buffer), do almost nothing on LinkedIn and wait till there are new positions open and I promise you, your charts and DMs will go crazy 😅

I learned recently an interesting thing about Mongoose and how it handles incompatible types. Imagine a situation: you've got your field defined as an array type in your schema, and one of the documents described by this schema has an empty string as a value. Let's put aside why the empty string got in there, and ask a question: when you pull this document, what is its value now? And the answer is: it's an array containing one empty string as its element, like [""]. It happens because Mongoose does implicit conversion under the hood for values that are not arrays, but are defined as such! I learned it when I was banging my head on the bug where empty string I saw in the database was somehow getting into the branch of my code restricted by Array.isArray() check. It's always worth it to know your tools' internals!

Sometimes my mentees ask me how I see the difference between Software Engineers (L4), Senior Engineers (L5), and Staff Engineers (L6). While this can vary between companies, there is a clear way to visualize these roles that came to my mind when answering that question: it comes down to how they interact with three key questions - "How," "What," and "Why." Here's how I see this at Buffer: Software Engineers (L4): Primarily focused on the "How." They clearly understand "What" needs to be done and "Why" it’s important, allowing them to dive into figuring out the technical specifics of implementation. Senior Engineers (L5): They comfortably handle the "How," but also frequently step into defining or clarifying "What" we're building. Occasionally, they'll delve into the "Why," ensuring alignment with larger goals, though usually within the scope of their immediate projects or teams. Staff Engineers (L6): Operate primarily at the intersection of "What" and "Why." They define and clarify the broader vision ("What") and purpose ("Why"), ensuring the work aligns strategically across multiple teams (or the whole organization when it comes to smaller companies like Buffer). They still engage with "How," but typically through mentoring others rather than direct implementation. Have you noticed similar transitions in mindset as you've advanced through engineering levels?

Sometimes my mentees ask me how I see the difference between Software Engineers (L4), Senior Engineers (L5), and Staff Engineers (L6). While this can vary between companies, there is a clear way to visualize these roles that came to my mind when answering that question: it comes down to how they interact with three key questions - "How," "What," and "Why." Here's how I see this at @Buffer: Software Engineers (L4): Primarily focused on the "How." They clearly understand "What" needs to be done and "Why" it’s important, allowing them to dive into figuring out the technical specifics of implementation. Senior Engineers (L5): They comfortably handle the "How," but also frequently step into defining or clarifying "What" we're building. Occasionally, they'll delve into the "Why," ensuring alignment with larger goals, though usually within the scope of their immediate projects or teams. Staff Engineers (L6): Operate primarily at the intersection of "What" and "Why." They define and clarify the broader vision ("What") and purpose ("Why"), ensuring the work aligns strategically across multiple teams (or the whole organization when it comes to smaller companies like Buffer). They still engage with "How," but typically through mentoring others rather than direct implementation. Have you noticed similar transitions in mindset as you've advanced through engineering levels?

Let me share my most precious travel hack for European cheap airlines like Ryanair or Wizzair. As a tall person (1.94m/6'4'') I always crave extra legroom seats, and I get them on most of my flights, for free. The secret is to buy flights without seats assigned, and wait till the very last moment for your check-in (usually check-in closes 2 hours before the flight, but be sure to check it!) Most people fly these airlines without pre-paid seats, and the airline always assigns the normal seats first, then front seats, and extra legroom seats are assigned as the last ones. If you check-in late, it's almost given that you'll end up with extra legroom seat! PS: Please don't use it against me 😜

📣 @Buffer is hiring — three senior engineer openings simultaneously is probably the biggest recruitment event at Buffer for a few years (it's nice working here, so people usually don't leave!), so that's a great chance for anyone thinking about it! Also, there are open positions in MY TEAM! ❤️ 🌏 Fully remote, global team (which is truly remote - for half a year every year I'm out of my base location) 📆 4-day workweek (and I really don't work Fridays) 💰 $156.5K - $202.3K + equity See more details and apply on https://buffer.com/journey

@threads team recently announced it's finally possible to add tags to your post via API, and this is me testing it. It's one thing I was missing the most from the Threads API especially for tags with spaces in them, so expect it soon in @Buffer!

I love inbox 0, but I also love my newsletters, which I don't always have the time to read right when I receive them. What's your way to keep them somewhere afloat and not forget about reading them, while still clearing out your email inbox? productivity

One of the most important aspects of a workplace for me is flexibility - I travel a lot, sometimes have to run some errands during the day, and sometimes I just feel the urge to resolve some challenging problem during the weekend. It's important though to be transparent about it with your teammates, so you're not creating a vision that in order to be successful you've got to work overtime or during the weekend, and what it really is - it's just your approach to flexibility. 1/2

TS devs, what's your preferred way to work around the lack of async constructors in classes? typescript

Bloggers, what's your CMS of choice nowadays? I was running self-hosted WordPress for many years now, but I'm a bit tired of managing the server and customizing everything - not that I can't, I just don't have time for it. I want something that just works and doesn't require me to customize a lot of stuff. Can be self-hosted, and I can also pay for it - I just want to own the data, have my domain, and be able to gather emails from readers. Does it mean Ghost? software

@mike.sanroman recently shared this article with us on Slack and I can't help but agree with the author's views on AI and the arguments against skepticism around it. <<“I’m sipping rocket fuel right now,” a friend tells me. “The folks on my team who aren’t embracing AI? It’s like they’re standing still.” >> - perfectly summarizes my feelings around that skepticism

And then there's GraphQL 😅

I'm pretty good at resolving bugs, and doing that fast - attached is the graph of issues resolved for our engineering team, the spike in mid-March is me, and that last, much bigger spike on the right is also me. I surprised even myself. The secret? 1/3

After a long time, we're hiring for a backend role! Apply to work with us! 🚀

If you ever wanted to ask me some questions about my work - that's the best opportunity to do so! I'll be answering questions as they come in for the next few hours, so don't hesitate to ask about anything you're interested in about what I do at @Buffer! :)

We're looking for a Senior Engineer to join Buffer - you'll be working across the stack, but what's especially important for us in this posting is frontend expertise. You'll join a team of experienced engineers, awesome EM, PM and Designer, working on core parts of our product. I'm especially excited as I will be your teammate there, so don't hesitate to apply (or ask any questions)! https://lnkd.in/dGA-NUfw

So exciting! Mastodon integration in Buffer is my newest child, I've been working on it last few weeks. If you'd like to try it, reach out to me or @Amanda Marochko! 😊

I'm big on being technology-agnostic. You choose the right tool for the job, it's not that PHP, JS or anything is bad. It's all got its pros and cons. I've worked for 4 different companies and led projects for tens of my clients, and I used tens of different technologies. I started with PHP, transitioned to Java, then Hack, and finally JS. It doesn't matter if you don't know the language in the beginning - if you know concepts, you will pick it up quickly.

You can be the best engineer only if you know the product you're working on well. I'm passionate about the projects I work on, but I don't create lots of SM content. That's what I'd like to change this year. This is, hopefully, the first of many posts in 23' created via @Buffer The best thing about it is I'll get to use our products more, jump into our customers' shoes, and maybe get some great ideas for improvements? That's really exciting. That's the first, real post I scheduled via Buffer - it feels awesome to finally use the product I'm working on! Have you got any suggestions on what you would like to see from me? I'll probably try some software engineering stuff - I've seen some things, having worked at Meta and now Buffer. I also know a bit about WordPress as I was an expert on @Codeable and had tens of clients. Also, I'm nomading for over a year now, with just one carry-on backpack. I feel like there are so many tips to share about working effectively while traveling.

Jeśli jesteście ciekawi, jak pracuje się przez 4 dni w tygodniu, całkowicie zdalnie, z ludźmi rozproszonymi po całym świecie - zapraszam do przeczytania mojego wywiadu z @Just Join IT 😊 https://lnkd.in/dTwAxQPX

If you'd ever wonder how to deploy your own high-traffic WordPress website (thousands of simultaneous visitors for as much as $5-$10/mo), here it is - my newest article https://lnkd.in/dMn9mzp is explaining it step by step ($100 free credits for DigitalOcean included 💵). If you know anyone who'd be interested in reading this one, please share! 🤓 #digitalocean #WordPress #nginx #php #mysql

If you'd ever wonder how to deploy your own high-traffic WordPress website (thousands of simultaneous visitors for as much as $5-$10/mo), here it is - my newest article https://lnkd.in/dMn9mzp is explaining it step by step ($100 free credits for DigitalOcean included 💵). If you know anyone who'd be interested in reading this one, please share! 🤓 #digitalocean #WordPress #nginx #php #mysql