The Balanced Engineer • Issue #34
Diving into Big O Notation, exploring AI content norms, and understanding the management skill that nobody talks about with content from Sam Rose, Sean Goedecke, and Matheus Lima!
The Balanced Engineer Newsletter
Week of August 25, 2025 • Issue # 34
🔧 Technical Excellence
Building skills that last beyond any framework
Big O by Sam Rose (Link)
Summary: Sam does an excellent job (as always) taking a complex foundational computer science subject and distilling it to an article that is simple and interactive. It's an overview of how different Big O Notations work and change based on different inputs, with some great examples and interactive elements that make it very easy to understand.
Why this resonates: I love every article he makes. He does such a great job of creating developer education content and it's one of my favorite recommendations. It's so cool to see what he puts together using interactive elements and animations, AND each of his articles make fantastic foundational resources that anyone can use.
As someone who didn't study computer science in school, I love a deep dive into Big O and what it means. I mostly get it now, but am filing this article away for the future to share with others.
Tags: Computer science
💬 Communication & Collaboration
Because the best code means nothing if you can't work with humans
Don't feed me AI slop by Sean Goedecke (Link)
Summary: Sean explains when it's okay to share AI generated content, and when current social norms say it's not. This is evolving quite a bit right now! His guideline is that when content is content-dense, and is as good as something you would have written yourself, then it's okay. He also described the almost disgusted reaction some folks have to reading only AI-generated content from someone.
Why this resonates: As a fellow remote engineer I really appreciate Sean's point of view here. He has done quite a bit of writing about opinions on AI, and I appreciate most of them! This is no different. It's fascinating to see where the social norms get created here around this new paradigm. I know I have personally gone through my own curve of AI Generated content and now use it primarily for brainstorming or polishing, instead of actually writing. Fully AI Written content has very little substance, and it's pretty obvious when it exists!
The same can be applied to AI Generated code. I've been using GitHub Copilot Coding agent for a ton of small tasks lately, and have found I have to have a much different mindset when reviewing those PRs compared to PRs from my colleagues. When a colleague writes something, as long as I find no obvious errors with what they wrote, I tend to be okay with any styling choices that aren't necessarily what I would choose. With AI-generated code, though, I'm typically much more explicit, and spend much more time reviewing how the change fits with the code around it to make sure the changes make sense. Sometimes AI goes off the rails and you gotta bring it back down to current practices. It has been worth the effort, though. Any change that fits in the "I already know how to fix this but don't want to go through the initial testing steps and just want to validate at the end" end up being done by the coding agent, and I've been able to fix way more little issues that can be tough to prioritize time to as a result!
Tags: Artificial intelligence
🚀 Career & Growth
Intentional choices for long-term success
The Management Skill Nobody Talks About by Matheus Lima (Terrible Software)
Summary: In this article, Matheus talks about a management superpower described in Good Inside by Dr. Becky Kennedy that can really be applied to every facet of life: repair. This means taking responsibility and acknowledging mistakes when they happen, and if possible fixing the mistake. A key point of repair is taking responsibility without making it about you. You should acknowledge the mistake without excuses and acknowledge the impact it has on other people.
Why this resonates: I am also a parent that subscribes to Good Inside and have found that the wisdom from Dr. Becky can be applied in so many parts of life. To me this isn't just about management. It's a sign of maturity and teamwork. It's a requirement in my opinion for getting to a senior level as a software engineer. Especially when building software, the sooner you can cut the excuses and get a mistake fixed, the better for everyone. You're going to make mistakes. That's just a fact of life when you're learning, which is a huge component of building software. What makes a difference between a good and great engineer is recognizing those mistakes, taking ownership, and fixing them when they happen.
Tags: Leadership
What I've Been Building
A quick look at what I've been working on this week
- Overcommitted: Ep. 21 | What the heck is an AI Agent? - Personal branding feels a bit cringey, but it exists whether you think about it or not!
- Overcommitted Book Club: Check out the insights from participant's read of the seventh chapter of Looks Good To Me!
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.