By Brittany Anas
Whether you want to keep up with the latest industry news or hone your coding craft, you can find a community of fellow software engineers online who are as passionate as you are about JavaScript, CS fundamentals, debugging, and more.
As a coding bootcamp graduate, start by bookmarking the Galvanize blog. Whether you’re a freshly minted coding grad or you’re sharpening your skills with professional development for software engineers, Galvanize is a valuable resource that shares news, tips, and career advice for those beginning or growing careers in web development and coding.
Additionally, there are lots of great blogs on the web that cover a wide range of software engineering topics. To curate this list, we asked industry insiders what’s on their “must-read” lists and also looked for blogs that are engaging, have gained a loyal following, and have been recognized with awards.
Here are nine great software engineering blogs worth bookmarking:
Coding Horror
Filled with tips and advice for software engineers, Coding Horror is written with a lighthearted tone. (Think: a musing dedicated to “Electric Geek Transportation Systems” sprinkled in with fun-to-read posts about the cloud and computer security). “Coding Horror is both informative and really entertaining, something you don’t typically expect to find in a software engineering blog,” says Chans Weber, founder, and CEO of Leap Clixx, an agile inbound marketing agency. Coding Horror was started in 2004 by software developer and author Jeff Atwood (or “Wumpus,” a nickname/handle he uses online). Atwoodalso co-founded Stack Overflow, a question-and-answer website for professional coders. Atwood has a firm belief that blogs should be a “two-way conversation” and he engages with on-topic emails and comments.
SEI Blog
The Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University wanted to have a place to share its research and development knowledge with a wider community of software engineers, developers, acquisition professionals, and cybersecurity experts. So, SEI launched its blog, which now has a library of more than 500 technical articles. SEI’s blog covers the latest research on software engineering, cybersecurity, and AI Engineering, with industry leaders exploring topics like the balance of cybersecurity and privacy concerns and detecting mismatches in machine-learning systems. One of the most popular posts is the 12 Risks, Threats, and Vulnerabilities in Moving to the Cloud.
Several People are Typing
Many coding and software engineering jobs have remote options. While not specifically for software engineers, Slack’s blog “Several People are Typing” is a great read for those who are new to a remote workforce or have just joined a team that uses Slack as a digital office. Posts will inspire you to boost productivity, learn the ins and outs of Slack channels, and how to collaborate on a remote team. Nine Remote Work Tips from Slack’s Software Engineering Team has lots of gems, including a case for shorter, more frequent meetings.
Follow Several People are Typing by Slack here.
Dev.to
Think of Dev.to as a blog of the future. A community composed of nearly 500,000 software developers share their expertise via informative blogs, with popular tags that include #javascript, #webdev, #beginners, and #productivity. “The articles are interesting, they cover the latest technologies and the comment section is full of interesting debates,” explains Daniel Cooper, a software engineer and managing director of Lolly.co, a digital transformation company.
Hackernoon
Hackernoon covers the latest news on AI, software development, gaming, python, blockchain, and startups, and this popular site draws 3 million curious readers each month. More than 15,000 contributing writers from around the world contribute to the site “I love the depth of the articles,” says Cooper. “The writers are IT professionals. They have the knowledge needed to cover a topic exhaustively.”
MartinFowler.Com
Martin Fowler describes himself as a “loud-mouthed pundit on the topic of software development.” The author and speaker started “bliki” in 2003 to engage with more informal writing. Fowler — the “chief scientist” at ThoughtWorks, a global technology company — covers a range of topics including agile software development, software architecture, and refactoring. “He writes about the hot topics of engineering, and you can hear his experience come through in his writing,” says Karl Robinson, the director and co-founder of Logicata, a firm that helps software companies transition to Amazon Web Services.
Fingent
Fingent, a custom software development company, has a good pulse on the best and latest trends in the software world and packages content that’s engaging and informative for the 20,000 visitors who come to its blog each month. “The unique thing is that each blog, topic, idea, and thought is the brainchild of one of the many talented software engineers aboard our team,” says Sreejith Omanakuttan, associate technical manager at Fingent. Team members decide on blog topics that are educational and where there’s not a lot of information already available. Some of the most popular posts include Six Ways Artificial Intelligence is Driving Decision Making and Function Point Analysis – Introduction and Fundamentals.
Pinterest Engineering
Ever wish you could get a behind-the-scenes look into how things are done at Pinterest? Enter Pinterest Engineering. “The blog is packed full of coding and engineering insights that are always on the cutting edge,” says James Boatwright, CEO of Code Galaxy, which teaches computer programming to kids. Pinterest has billions of ‘pins’ intended to spark inspiration. The company’s engineers share secrets like how and why they redesigned the social media site’s homepage and how to launch a career at Pinterest.
Follow Pinterest Engineering here.
A List Apart
A favorite, must-read for software engineers is A List Apart, which has a topic index with a number of coding posts, including 158 articles on CSS; 164 on HTML; 114 on JavaScript; and many more. Curious coders can also read about adjacent topics including user experience and design on A List Apart. “It’s a great blog that covers a wide range of tech and software engineering topics,” says Jack Zmudzinski, a senior associate at Future Processing, a software development company. (You can, BTW, read the company’s blog here). A List Apart, Zmudzinski says, encourages input from thought leaders, which results in a diverse range of opinions.
