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🛑 The interview question every dev dreads

🛑 The interview question every dev dreads

Inside Microsoft’s quiet takeover of GitHub, and why engineers aren’t thrilled.

Journals GG
October 13, 2025

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Programming

🕴️ Getting More Strategic
Strategy isn’t just having a plan, it’s understanding where you are, where you’re going, and what actually works to get there. The real trick? Good strategy often looks boring because it works so well that the problems never show up. But being seen as strategic? That’s a whole different game, especially for people who quietly make magic happen without fanfare. Context matters. So does timing. So does execution. You can’t copy-paste what worked somewhere else and expect it to work again. Strategy is proactive, contextual, and adaptive, especially post-ZIRP, where constraints force hard choices. It’s about carving paths that weren’t there before.

🔎 How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer
You don’t have to play 4D chess to influence tech company politics as a staff engineer, you just need timing and preparation. The real power move? Align your solid technical ideas with the company’s shifting priorities at the right moment. Reliability push? Suggest your billing overhaul. Leadership embarrassed by the docs? Pitch your static site plan. Be the engineer who has good ideas ready when the execs are scrambling for one.

⚖️ GitHub Will Prioritize Migrating to Azure Over Feature Development
GitHub’s independence is officially coming to an end. With CEO Thomas Dohmke stepping down and the company being pulled tighter into Microsoft’s org chart, GitHub is now shifting all its infrastructure to Azure, even if it means putting new features on hold. CTO Vladimir Fedorov calls the move “existential” to keep up with AI and Copilot demand. But internally, there’s concern: GitHub’s MySQL backbone runs on bare metal, and moving it to Azure won’t be easy, or painless.

🛑 How to Design a Rate Limiter (A Complete Guide for System Design Interviews)
“How would you design a rate limiter?” If you’ve heard that in a system design interview, you’re not alone, it’s a classic that dives deep into scalability, data structures, and distributed systems. Javinpaul breaks it down step by step, from simple in-memory solutions to more complex distributed setups, plus the interview follow-ups you need to be ready for.

🤔 15 Recent Node.js Features that Replace Popular npm Packages
Node.js is growing up, and it’s cutting out the middlemen. Features that once required third-party npm packages are now built right into the core runtime, reducing bloat and making apps easier to maintain. Here are 15 examples.

Front-End

📽️ Vite: The Documentary
“If you’re using a JavaScript framework, you’re probably using Vite.” What began as Evan You’s side project to fix Webpack pain has become the go-to build tool across React, Svelte, Astro, and more. A new documentary traces Vite’s rise, from scrappy underdog to modern web tooling standard, through rivalries, rewrites, and community-fueled innovation.

🖼️ Birth of Prettier
With React Conf taking place and nearly a decade since Prettier launched, it’s a perfect time to reflect on how it reshaped developer workflows. The space vs. tabs war didn’t end in a truce, it ended because Prettier made the fight irrelevant. A tool, not a side, settled one of coding’s most tedious debates.

📱React Native 0.82 - A New Era
React Native 0.82 is here, and it’s officially all-in on the New Architecture. This release drops support for the legacy architecture entirely, streamlining the codebase and paving the way for a leaner future. Also shipping: experimental Hermes V1, React 19.1.1, and DOM Node API support, marking a major step forward for the platform.

📖 A complete guide to HTTP caching
Caching is what makes the web fast, but most developers get it wrong. From misused headers to broken cache strategies, small mistakes lead to slow sites, high costs, and fragile systems. This guide breaks down how HTTP caching actually works, so you can build faster, cheaper, and more resilient web apps that hold up under real traffic.