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 Chainguard
Does ‘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
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Building a cloud architecture that can scale to any challenge
By building a cloud architecture that could meet the complex needs of international expansion, Nubank has established a more robust and flexible cloud infrastructure.
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OpenAI explains how they scaled ChatGPT
Ahead of his talk at LeadDev West Coast in October, OpenAI’s Evan Morikawa goes behind-the-scenes on the challenges they faced scaling ChatGPT, the constant need to reset as a leader, and how GPUs don’t in fact grow on trees.
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How AI changes engineering management
The rise of competent AI coding assistants could shift the role of software engineering managers considerably. Are you ready for that change?
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Tech debt for engineering leaders: How a shortcut today impacts tomorrow
Technical debt is a ubiquitous problem for engineering managers, but what does it actually mean and how can you best attack it while balancing the other needs of the business?
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How to get leadership buy-in on your tech strategy
For some Staff+ engineers, technical strategy development is an expectation, and not an easy one to navigate. Ras Kasa Williams is here to help you get buy-in for that strategy.
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Tech debt traps to avoid
Tech debt is a term that often catches people out. Here are some ways to make sure you avoid falling into that trap!
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The 6 biggest generative AI risks for developers
The future of work will almost certainly involve the use of generative AI tools, but is big tech being too hasty in integrating these capabilities into the software we use every day?
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Can platform engineering help you do more with less?
As tech faces a downturn, platform engineering offers a way to decrease cognitive load, cut cloud costs, and boost delivery speed. What’s the catch?
Top Technical Direction videos
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Simplify streaming application development: A declarative approach at Airbnb
This talk discusses the growing importance of streaming applications in today’s tech landscape and the engineering challenges involved, such as handling multiple data sources and complex transformations.
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The (big) picture of debt
What is the true cost of a choice to e.g. share a database, and what does it take to change it? When is the right time to tackle something like this, and how can we tell? Tali shares experiences with these questions that will set you up for success with your own enormous debt payment.
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When to know you’ve outgrown your monolith and what to do about it
This talk will dive into the most ambitious tech debt paydown project that was ever undertaken at Stripe.
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Reducing infrastructure cost during development and in production
Sally shares lessons learned from her experience at different companies to reduce costs from the product development stage to running a service in production.
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Building products is a team sport: Cultivating effective engineering-product partnerships
With new AI developments happening almost every day, team roadmaps evolve fast to adapt to the product and business needs; this requires a close partnership between engineering and product leaders.
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Content sponsored by Harness
Does your org need platform engineering?
The panel digs into what the approach looks like in practice, and ask whether platform engineering really holds the key to unlocking happy and productive teams. You will leave this session with a better understanding of what platform engineering really is, how it relates to developer happiness, and whether it’s the right route to go down for your org.
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Content sponsored by Chronosphere
Making cloud native work for your org
How can enterprises make the leap to cloud native? What do they need to know?