Juan

Machine Learning Engineer and Manager at @FactoredAI

[Tanuj @tanujDE3180]

a database engineer in my first company retired after 18 years.

the company threw him a cake and thank-you email.

two weeks later nobody could explain why certain tables existed.

or why deleting one row broke three other services.

turns out he was the documentation.

nobody even knew.

knowledge is technical debt when it lives in one person’s head.

[Tanuj @tanujDE3180]

a staff engineer at my old company got laid off during “cost cutting.”

his entire farewell meeting was 12 minutes long.

week later:
payment service started randomly failing.

turns out he was manually fixing edge-case data corruption every night for 3 years.

nobody even knew.

the most dangerous systems are the ones surviving because of one invisible engineer.

[Abhishek Singh @0xlelouch_]

Ten lazy years can disappear the moment you lock in.

I saw this very closely with someone I consulted on a personal call through LinkedIn.

He had almost 8 years of experience in TCS.

Good guy, family man, wife, kids, responsibilities, but he felt stuck.

I would say he was moderately smart but very very humble and hardworking and open to learning.

He had spent years doing work that never really pushed him deep technically.

And this happens to so many engineers.

You spend years in service companies, support heavy projects, internal tools, client work, random tech stack, and suddenly one day you realize you have experience on paper but not enough confidence to crack strong product companies.

But the beautiful thing is, your past is not permanent.

Once he got serious, everything changed.

He started working on fundamentals properly.

DSA, system design, backend concepts, APIs, databases, caching, distributed systems, interview communication, resume positioning, everything.

Not randomly. But with intent.

For almost 5 months, he trained like someone who had no backup.

And then slowly the trajectory changed.

First switch to a startup in kormangala bglr.

Then another switch to google!

So within around 1.5 years, he landed at Google as SWE 3.

But the best part was not even the brand name.

The best part was when he told me he is finally happy with the kind of problems he gets to work on.

That is the real win.

Because salary is important, Google tag is important, but waking up and feeling that your brain is finally being used for real engineering problems is a different kind of happiness.

And he is not some 22 year old with zero responsibilities.

He is supporting his family, wife and kids, still made it happen.

This is why I keep saying, your career can change very fast once you stop drifting.

Sometimes it does not take 10 years.

Sometimes 5-6 months of serious discipline is enough to bend your whole career path and especially more so in software.

Momentum is magic.

One good phase of focused effort can make your past failures look like training.

[Juan @juangilopez]

@kunchenguid Conversely, I think this a great era for managers to actually focus on going back to building at least in an mvp capacity.

I do think goos managers, have both great business accumen and technical proficiency, at least enought to be more effective at building the right things

[Juan @juangilopez]

La narrativa es muy impotante en politica, lastimosamente la del centro convence a muy pocos, petro y abelardo saben capitalizar esto muy bien, soluciones "simples" que enardecen a la gente a expensas del daño, pero lo que importa es que tu base se sienta bien y vote berraca

[Juan @juangilopez]

Dos cosas pueden ser verdad al mismo tiempo, alejandro gaviria puede ser acertado con su lectura sobre petro, pero tambien es cierto que el, fajardo y otros como claudia no tienen el apoyo popular

[Shameel Thahir Silva 🔻 @ShameelThahir]

Debe ser muy frustrante para Alejandro Gaviria que despues de la inflada con esteroides que le metieron hace 4 años los grandes dueños del capital en Colombia y la constante adulación que recibe de ciertos circulos de la tecnocracia esnob y el periodismo del parque de la 93 se de cuenta que nunca tendra el apoyo popular que mantiene hoy el presidente Petro a pesar del odio y los ataques constantes de los que quisieron que Gaviria fuera su directa competencia en el 2022. Debio quedarse como rector de los Andes y no ceder a esos cantos de sirena.

[Abhishek Singh @0xlelouch_]

I have worked with similar people and honestly, earlier it used to affect me a lot too.

But with time I realised one simple thing:

In engineering, your best response is your git commit.

Your best response is a clean commit, a well-written PR, a proper design doc, a dashboard, a benchmark, or production data that calmly says what worked and what did not.

This is even more true in the AI era.

Now you can quickly collect logs, compare approaches, write better docs, generate test cases, create small prototypes, and bring actual data points to the discussion instead of fighting with opinions.

I believe this is where the next generation of engineers will be different.

Less ego-driven. More data-driven.

Less “I think this will work.” More “I tested both paths, here are the numbers, here is the tradeoff.”

Arrogance might dominate a meeting for 10 minutes. Consistent execution, evidence, and calm communication wins over months and years.

[Juan @juangilopez]

@jimmyhurff @fjzeit Problem is that with AI the machine is non-deterministic by nature, even if two different users input the same prompt, AI can yield different outputs.
With combustion engines you have predictable behavior following laws of physics.

[Will Ahmed @willahmed]

You have no experience.
You’ve never started a company.
You’ve never had a full time job.
Nike is going to kill you.
You’re a kid.
You don’t have technical skills.
You shouldn’t build hardware.
Apple is going to kill you.
You can’t build hardware.
You can’t measure heart rate non-invasively.
Athletes don’t care about recovery.
Under Armour is going to kill you.
It won’t be accurate.
You don’t listen.
You’re an ineffective leader.
You can’t recruit great talent.
You’re going to have to pay every athlete.
You can’t measure sleep non-invasively.
It’s too expensive to research.
Athletes are a small market.
The product costs too much to make.
The product costs too much to sell.
Your valuation is too high.
Consumers aren’t going to want it.
Hardware is too hard.
You should measure steps.
Fitbit is going to kill you.
You can’t build a marketing engine.
You can’t raise enough money.
You need a real CEO.
Google is going to kill you.
You can’t be a subscription.
You can’t build a brand.
You can’t do consumer in Boston.
Your valuation is too high.
You shouldn’t make accessories.
You shouldn’t make apparel.
Lululemon is going to kill you.
You can’t predict Covid.
Stay in your niche.
You are going to run out of money.
You can’t build a health platform.
Amazon is going to kill you.
You can’t measure blood pressure.
You can’t get medical approvals.
The market is too small.
You don’t understand AI.
The market is too competitive.
It won’t work internationally.
The supply chain is too complicated.
You can’t build an AI.
You can’t raise enough money.
It’s too competitive.
Healthcare isn’t going to want it.
…

Just keep going ✌️

[Arpit Bhayani @arpit_bhayani]

I have seen more systems struggling because of wrong code than slower ones. The fact remains, most engineers optimise too early.

About 8 years ago, my principal engineer once told me: Performance is almost always the last thing you should be thinking about. As an SDE-2, this did not make sense :) After a few follow-ups, I understood why he meant that.

The order that actually matters is this. First, is the code correct? Does it do what it is supposed to do? Second, can someone maintain it six months from now without wanting to quit? Third, is it fast to read and write? Only after all three does performance even enter the conversation.

The reason this order exists is simple. A fast, unmaintainable codebase is a liability. A performant-but-wrong system is worse than a slow, correct one. You cannot optimise your way out of a bug.

Now, this is not universally true. Databases, high-frequency trading systems, and real-time embedded software are domains where performance is a first-class concern from day one. But those are the exceptions, not the default assumption you should bring to every PR.

What is certainly true is that for most codebases, premature optimisation adds complexity, reduces readability, and solves a problem that does not exist yet.

So, write correct code first. Then clean it. Then, only if the profiler gives you a reason, make it fast.

[Daniel Hnyk @hnykda]

LiteLLM HAS BEEN COMPROMISED, DO NOT UPDATE. We just discovered that LiteLLM pypi release 1.82.8. It has been compromised, it contains litellm_init.pth with base64 encoded instructions to send all the credentials it can find to remote server + self-replicate. link below

[Juan @juangilopez]

La derecha se beneficiaria mas de entender el porque petro y la izquierda gano gran parte del voto popular, en vez de antagonizarlo.

Si fueran estrategicos entenderian que hay un sector olvidado que reclama derechos y sienten que su unica opcion es la izquierda.

[Juan @juangilopez]

It is basically cheap dopamine, but at least you are building stuff

[Om Patel @om_patel5]

the guy who built the AI behind Tesla's self-driving cars hasn't written a single line of code since December

went from writing 80% of his own code to 0%. spends 16 hours a day directing AI agents instead.

says he's in "perpetual AI psychosis" because the possibilities feel infinite.

Garry Tan says the same thing. calls it "cyber psychosis."

vibe coding is genuinely an addiction.

[Abhishek Singh @0xlelouch_]

The best software engineers I know all have this in common:

• Start coding with big dreams at 21.
• Get rejected by companies at 22.
• Take the job they could get at 23.
• Spend 2 years fixing bugs and writing CRUD APIs.
• Feel behind when others post big salaries online.
• Try to switch at 26.
• Fail interviews at 27.
• Realize tutorials were not enough.
• Finally learn CS fundamentals, system design, databases, networking, and how real systems break.
• Start building better at 29.
• Become dangerous at 31.

And change their family’s future by 35.

With their sharpest years still ahead.

Software engineering is not a sprint.

It is a long game of skill, patience, and staying in the fight.

Keep going.

[Juan @juangilopez]

No entiendo esa obsesion con los principios inamovibles en los políticos, esta bien cambiar de opinion a la luz de nueva evidencia

[ÚltimaHoraCaracol @UltimaHoraCR]

#ElGranReto2026 | “Yo no hago acuerdos sobre la base de volverme lo que no soy (…) yo no creo en la política que convierte a la gente en lo que está de moda”, dijo la candidata Paloma Valencia sobre las líneas rojas de Juan Daniel Oviedo para ser su fórmula vicepresidencial.

Vía @laurad_duarte
https://t.co/v2vIVVHFXe

[Juan @juangilopez]

Muy contento por juan daniel oviedo

[Rituraj @RituWithAI]

We often over-index on "Process" and "Best Practices" (Agile, OKRs, complex architectures) and lose sight of the actual product. "Common Sense" in engineering is rare because it requires you to ignore the corporate playbook and just ask: "Does this actually help the user, or are we just shipping complexity to look busy?"

[Juan @juangilopez]

I couldn't agree with this more, as a manager I try to highlight our impactful quiet team members and put them in the spotlight. However, you might not always have a "good" manager, thus learning how to sell your work and your impact is a good skill to have.

[Simons @Simon_Ingari]

Manager: “I’ve noticed you’re quiet in meetings.”
Employee: “I’m just focused on execution.”
Manager: “You need to speak up more to get noticed.”

In too many workplaces, visibility beats value.
Introverts and deep thinkers get overshadowed by louder personalities.
But being outspoken doesn’t always mean being effective.

The best leaders recognize impact, not just volume.
If your promotion depends on performance plus politics, your culture has already failed.

Thoughts?

[vx-underground @vxunderground]

One way to differentiate a real nerd from a phony nerd is their appreciation of stuff

For example, someone may share an idea, or proof-of-concept, which illustrates something which is unusual

A nerd will appreciate it for it's documentation and appreciation that someone has shared this finding

A phony nerd will almost immediately, without hesitation, question the applicability of the thing being presented

Dawg, not everything has to have a purpose. Sometimes things are fun. Sometimes it's cool to do shit, just do to do shit. Not everything has to be for profit, or progress, or whatever the fuck else.

I've done so much useless stupid bullshit just because I thought it was interesting.

I've seen nerds share weird ass notes on something they reversed on Windows that basically no one uses or gives a shit about, and I love it and appreciate it.

You can just do things bro

The unknown is cool and badass. Explore it

If it's known and you wanna explore it, do it anyway so you can experience it yourself

Just fuckin have fun idfk