CTO Insights - Issue #136
Software Engineering and Technical Leadership
Hi, this is Tosho Trajanov with CTO Insights #136.
This newsletter delivers handpicked content on software engineering and technical leadership content, making your weekly reading insightful, enjoyable, and efficient.
This week’s favorite - The key to unlocking developer productivity and Scaling the Instagram Explore recommendations system.
Architecture
Scaling the Instagram Explore recommendations system
Instagram's Explore is one of the largest recommendation systems, serving content to hundreds of millions daily. The article reveals how advanced machine learning models, such as Two Towers neural networks, have enhanced the scalability and flexibility of the Explore recommendation system. A multi-stage approach to ranking, featuring retrieval, first-stage ranking, second-stage ranking, and final re-ranking, has been evolved to select from billions of content options in real-time.
Anyone interested in AI-driven content recommendation and large-scale system design will find this inside look at Instagram's techniques enlightening.
Scalability
The Next Chapter of Coupon’s Scaling
Myntra's coupon platform, responsible for creating and distributing personalized and generic coupons, faces the need to evolve to support increased scale requirements in the rapidly changing e-commerce landscape. This article outlines the imminent necessity to revolutionize the system design, keeping pace with new capabilities previously considered unfeasible.
How we improved our Serverless API 300x
This article shares the impressive journey of improving a Serverless API's response time by 300 times, reducing it from 20,000 ms to 60 ms. Utilizing AWS DynamoDB for the epilot platform, the authors faced challenges in designing Microservices and adapting to a dynamic environment. They offer insights into their performance enhancement process.
Culture
Create a Growth Culture, Not a Performance-Obsessed One
This article challenges the emphasis on performance in corporate cultures, proposing a focus on growth instead. By creating an environment that values safety, continuous learning, and feedback, leaders may achieve more sustainable results. Explore the article to discover why a growth culture might be a more effective strategy for success.
Leadership
Overcoming Your Fear of Giving Tough Feedback
This article addresses the critical importance of constructive feedback in leadership and team growth. It warns against the dangers of poor communication and unclear expectations, highlighting how they can erode trust and engagement in the workplace. The author presents five actionable strategies to overcome the fear of giving feedback, aiming to enhance leadership effectiveness. Dive into the article to learn more about creating a transparent and nurturing work environment.
Product
The power of behavioral psychology in product
In product management, understanding user behavior is essential. This article explores key behavioral psychology principles, such as operant conditioning and Hick's Law, demonstrating how they can be applied to enhance product design. Real-world examples illustrate these concepts, offering valuable insights for those aiming to create more effective, user-centric products.
Other
A Guide to OpenAI: How to Choose the Best Language Model For Your AI Application
The article delves into the author's exploration of OpenAI's text models, from GPT-3 to GPT-4, highlighting their characteristics and purposes. Intended to assist developers in selecting the best model for their AI applications, the piece provides insights into the latest Large Language Models, including a valuable cheatsheet for reference.
Attention is All A Manager Needs
This article addresses the complex challenges faced by engineering managers and directors in managing information at scale. The author details the balancing act required to navigate modern organizations, combating information overload while avoiding scarcity. Offering insights from personal experience, the piece explores unique obstacles at various management levels and promises practical tools to aid the reader's journey, making it a valuable resource for those in leadership positions.
How AI changes engineering management
Generative AI-powered programming tools such as ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot are reshaping the coding landscape, being used by 92% of developers for various tasks. This article explores the current effectiveness of these tools and contemplates their future impact on the industry, offering insight for engineering managers on how to adapt and thrive.
The key to unlocking developer productivity
This article intro shares the author's experience of coding joy at Microsoft and how, as CTO at Atlassian, they're implementing a philosophy that joy unlocks productivity.
Through a three-part framework focusing on tools, empowerment, and culture, the goal is to create a virtuous cycle where developers thrive creatively and efficiently.
Closing Notes
Thanks for making it this far! 🙏
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