The Balanced Engineer • Issue #31
This week's newsletter highlights three articles about modern CSS tools that make SPAs outdated and unnecessary, giving/receiving feedback, and personas of AI developers by Jono Alderson, Ashley Willis, and Thomas Dhomke!
The Balanced Engineer Newsletter
Week of August 4, 2025 • Issue # 31
🔧 Technical Excellence
Building skills that last beyond any framework
It's time for modern CSS to kill the SPA by Jono Alderson (his blog)
Summary: This article argues that Single Page Applications (SPAs) are outdated and largely unnecessary for most websites. They were a workaround for limitations of the browser that no longer exist, like transitioning smoothly between states. It describes using the View Transitions API (enabling smooth animations between actual page navigations), speculation rules (allows preloading pages based on user behavior), and back/forward cache (bfcache, for performance improvements when navigating back or forward). The benefits of using these native browser and CSS tools is that you can have much smaller JavaScript bundles and a faster overall application, as well as fewer bugs like having to mess with how things like scrolling and navigation side effects.
Why this resonates: I don't spend nearly enough time reading actual technical articles but this was one that I really enjoyed (shoutout to the Friday Front-end newsletter, where I found it!) I'm pretty bought-in to the idea of learning more about native browser tools that make SPAs basically unnecessary now after reading the article, and I'm really excited to learn more about the tools that were mentioned! I've worked at GitHub for a little over three years now, and I find that when I'm at a company for a while I can get pretty stuck in the way things are done there. This was a really nice read about modern practices that I haven't heard of and am excited to maybe bring to my team after I learn more about them!
Tags: CSS
💬 Communication & Collaboration
Because the best code means nothing if you can't work with humans
Feedback is not an attack by Ashley Willis (her blog)
Summary: This article is going down as one of my favorite resources about giving and receiving feedback. The high level points that I took away are that feedback should be a mirror to help you reflect and improve yourself, that most people say that they want direct feedback when they really don't, that the delivery of feedback can be just as important as the actual content, and that power dynamics (like manager-employee, or even skip-level relationships) can color feedback in an unintentional way.
Why this resonates: I have a really phenomenal manager right now, and one thing that I really like about her is the fact that she gives really good feedback. This is something that has been incredibly rare in my career. (It also makes me nervous because I know one day someone is going to notice how good she is and promote her and she won't be my manager anymore). Since I have rarely gotten actually constructive feedback in my career, I've had to practice how to receive that feedback. I definitely think that I could do a better job feeling less defensive when I do receive it, and that's something that I plan to work on! Ashley's article describes that from the position of someone who has the power of a high-level position, and the way that it makes giving feedback even more delicate, and I found it incredibly insightful.
Tags: feedback
🚀 Career & Growth
Intentional choices for long-term success
Developers, Reinvented by Thomas Dhomke (his blog)
Summary: This article by Thomas describes his opinions on the shift in software development that is redefining the way that we build. What really stuck with me was the descriptions of the different stages developers go through when adopting AI usage, from skeptic to explorer to collaborator to strategist. I found this particularly interesting because I've noticed a similar staged approach when talking to folks about AI in the developer community. Most skeptics that I know are folks that have barely used AI. They found that it wasn't a drop-in replacement for Google searches and that was all they needed to know it wasn't for them. Then, as folks continue using it more and more, they tend to gain more optimism and more powerful skills to collaborate and strategize using a LLM.
Why this resonates: I am trying to be a bit more careful about the amount of AI-specific content that I read and share on a regular basis, but this is one that I really liked (I know a lot of people probably think that's the case because the guy writing it is my boss's boss's boss's boss, or something like that, but I did genuinely enjoy this article and think it was worth sharing!) I personally am adopting the 4 stages as a way to understand where folks are at along the AI adoption curve to know how to tailor conversations about it. It's also helpful to see where folks are at right now with their AI adoption and understand what the "next level" is. I'm personally not at stage four at this point, but seeing it outlined in this article makes it easier for me to understand what it is and gives me ideas on how to get there.
Tags: AI
🎯 Try This
One small thing to practice this week
Consider your most recent experience receiving feedback. How could it have gone better?
The last time you were given feedback, how did it go? Did it help you reflect on yourself? Or was it uncomfortable? Did you get defensive?
Think about how it could have gone better. Could you have been less defensive about it? Or could the way that the feedback was given to you have gone better? (This is great feedback for the feedback-giver, if it's your manager or someone else that regularly gives them feedback, let them know how to do it in a way that is helpful for you!)
What I've Been Building
A quick look at what I've been working on this week
- Overcommitted: Ep. 18 | Navigating Mentorship in Tech Internships with Alec Breton, Cole Hartman, and Doris Wang - This was a lovely conversation with some of the interns and a mentor for the interns from GitHub this summer, talking about mentorship, psychological safety, and yes, AI (surprise), in internships.
- Overcommitted Book Club: Check out the insights from participant's read of the fourth chapter of Looks Good To Me!
- Illustration: I'm taking on a challenge to draw one thing each week day in August. Here's my most recent one!
Have comments or questions about this newsletter? Or just want to be internet friends? Send me an email at brittany@balancedengineer.com or reach out on Bluesky or LinkedIn.