Why we should anthropomorphize LLMs
Read it on seangoedecke.com I recently read a very good blog post by Halvar Flake titled “A non-anthropomorphized view of LLMs”. Here’s a very brief summary:...
Mecha-Hitler, Grok, and why it's so hard to give LLMs the right personality
Read it on seangoedecke.com Recently, xAI’s Grok model made some very strange comments. In a now-deleted post, it suggested Adolf Hitler as the right person...
The more senior engineers get, the more results matter
Read it on seangoedecke.com In my experience, people tend to overrate how much moving up the org chart changes the fundamentals of the job. As a staff...
How I use LLMs to learn new subjects
Read it on seangoedecke.com If you want to learn about a new subject in 2025, one of the best ways to do it is to ask a strong language model. The reason...
Building tiny AI tools for developer productivity
Read it on seangoedecke.com The two current paradigms of AI app development are agentic coding (using an AI to help you write your ordinary line-of-business...
How to become passionate about delivering shareholder value
Read it on seangoedecke.com I am passionate about delivering shareholder value. It feels kind of embarrassing to admit, but it’s true1. I like all the things...
What happens when engineers work more than one job
Read it on seangoedecke.com There’s a news story going around about an engineer called Soham1 who was routinely “overemployed”: he maintained remote jobs at...
Continuous AI in software engineering
Read it on seangoedecke.com When I use AI in my software engineering job, I use it “on tap”: when I have a problem that I’d like to run past the LLM, I go...
I don't care if my manager writes code
Read it on seangoedecke.com I write a lot about how the post-2010s economic squeeze has made it harder to be a software engineer at a large tech company. But...
AI coding agents are already commoditized
Read it on seangoedecke.com All of a sudden, it’s the year of AI coding agents. Claude released Claude Code, OpenAI released their Codex agent, GitHub...
Pure and impure software engineering
Why do solo game developers tend to get into fights with big tech engineers? Read it on seangoedecke.com Why do solo game developers tend to get into fights...
Everything I know about good system design
Read it on seangoedecke.com I see a lot of bad system design advice. One classic is the LinkedIn-optimized “bet you never heard of queues” style of post,...
What's going to happen to junior engineers?
I'm worried about the impact of AI on the market for juniors. Read it on seangoedecke.com In the 2010s, companies were hiring a lot of juniors. This was...
Is this your brain on ChatGPT?
Is this your brain on ChatGPT? Read it on seangoedecke.com A recent MIT study - titled “Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an...
Every service should have a killswitch
Every service should have a killswitch Read it on seangoedecke.com The more time you spend designing systems, the more paranoid you get about things going...
Say "but yes", not "yes but"
Say "but yes", not "yes but" Read it on seangoedecke.com When you’re agreeing with someone but you have a caveat, don’t say “yes, but”. Instead, say “but...
The first big AI disaster is yet to happen
The first big AI disaster is yet to happen Read it on seangoedecke.com The first public passenger locomotive, Locomotion No. 1, began service in September...
The illusion of "The Illusion of Thinking"
The illusion of "The Illusion of Thinking" Read it on seangoedecke.com Very recently (early June 2025), Apple released a paper called The Illusion of...
AI interpretability is further along than I thought
AI interpretability is further along than I thought Read it on seangoedecke.com It’s common to call AI language models “black boxes”. Unlike normal human-...
Arguing point-by-point considered harmful
Arguing point-by-point considered harmful Read it on seangoedecke.com Engineers love to have technical discussions point-by-point: replying to every idea in...
