Latest
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Breaking down the WordPress drama
A dispute has riven the WordPress community in half, how does this impact developers?
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Build an AI roadmap that actually delivers value
There are lots of things to consider before you dive into the world of AI. If you want to do it correctly, consider these core elements.
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How to craft a realistic technology roadmap
Technology roadmaps are difficult things to navigate. Having a realistic approach can save you a lot of time and energy.
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Content sponsored by ChainguardDoes ‘shifting security left’ really work?
“Shifting security left” is a term in modern DevOps that refers to the practice of integrating security measures earlier in the software development lifecycle (SDLC).
Editor’s picks
November 4 & 5, 2025
The leadership conference for tech leads and engineering leaders.
Essential reading
How to build an effective technical strategy
Building a tech strategy requires a lot of moving parts. Learn about what routes to take and whether decisions should be top-down.
On our Technical Direction playlist
Managing architecture
Lutz Hühnken talks about the importance of a strategic approach to software architecture, that prevents teams from becoming architecture firefighters, who spent an excessive amount of energy applying short-term fixes to architectural problems.
Technical Vision vs. Technical Strategy: The difference and why it matters
Jonathan Maltz digs into the nuts and bolts of setting a successful technical strategy. Startin by talking about the difference between technical vision and technical strategy.
Writing your technical strategy
Bruce Wang talks about Writing your technical strategy (psst, it doesn’t have to feel like a Squid Game) at LeadDev Together in February 2022.
Good technical debt
Jon Thornton discusses how this framework was used to rapidly build and ship Squarespace’s Email Campaigns product in less than 15 months. Along the way, you’ll get several practical guidelines for how tech debt can supercharge your technical investments.
Creating, defining, and refining an effective tech strategy
Having a defined tech strategy creates alignment and keeps everyone on the same page. So how can you ensure yours is most effective? Panelists Anna Shipman, Randy Shoup, Papanii Nene Okai, Nimisha Asthagiri and Anand Mariappan share their tips.
November 4 & 5, 2025
The leadership conference for tech leads and engineering leaders.
More about Technical Direction
Top Technical Direction videos
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Traps on the Path to Microservices
After Netflix helped popularize microservices, you probably heard the architectural pattern labelled a boon. However, if your team is tasked with implementing the pattern it is too easy to find yourself in a place where you’ve significantly increased your architectural complexity without deriving any of the benefits that microservices purport to bring, especially if implemented without proper organizational maturity or careful foresight and follow-through.
ThoughtWorks has led many teams and organizations along the path from monoliths to microservices and this presentation covers three of the major traps that we’ve experienced (as well as how to avoid them). The traps covered are, underestimating the cost of a microservice, overcentralization, and neglecting the monolith
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Traps on the Path to Microservices
After Netflix helped popularize microservices, you probably heard the architectural pattern labelled a boon. However, if your team is tasked with implementing the pattern it is too easy to find yourself in a place where you’ve significantly increased your architectural complexity without deriving any of the benefits that microservices purport to bring, especially if implemented without proper organizational maturity or careful foresight and follow-through.
ThoughtWorks has led many teams and organizations along the path from monoliths to microservices and this presentation covers three of the major traps that we’ve experienced (as well as how to avoid them). The traps covered are, underestimating the cost of a microservice, overcentralization, and neglecting the monolith
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Avoiding “shiny object” syndrome when building software
Technology is fast moving, and devops tools pop up like wildfire. Teams are desperate to solve their problems & often make implementation decisions based on word of mouth, “kick the tires” syndrome or superficial evaluations.
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Avoiding the pitfalls of rebuilding software
If you think back to the work you were doing last year, it probably feels miles away – and that’s great! As engineers, we’re continually building and creating great new stuff – it’s what we do.
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An intro to Nativescript
Mobile app development has always required learning each platform’s programming language and peculiarities. For developers coming from the web, where you write once and run anywhere, this is tough.
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Practical web security
Computer security talks are too often filled with theoretical computer scientists telling us about how the end is nigh. Don’t get me wrong, I love knowing the nitty details of cryptographic algorithms, but a whole lot of web developers don’t.
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An intro to Rush
A very brief introduction to Rust and why it should be on your radar. Rust is a “systems” programming language that is designed to be a modern replacement for C++. It has an impressive out-of-the box tool chain, an interesting approach to safe concurrency and easy integration with C and other languages. It’s certainly a powerful tool to have at your disposal.
