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Gergely Orosz walked away from engineering management at Uber to become tech's most influential newsletter writer. His Pragmatic Engineer newsletter reaches over 1 million readers—more than the population of San Francisco—making him the #1 tech writer on Substack.
In this conversation, we dive deep into why junior developers can't get hired, what actually drives career growth, and his concept of "energy" as the hidden force that makes or breaks engineering teams.
Key Topics Discussed:
The IC vs Manager Decision (5:45)
- Gergely's journey: Principal → Senior Engineer at Uber (but 2x the comp)
- Why you should try management for 1-2 years (even if you hate it)
- The "insurance policy" of management experience
- How "failed managers" make the best staff engineers
What Makes a Technical Manager (17:53)
- The Booking.com burnout story
- Why managers who can't code struggle
- Amazon's "dive deep" principle in practice
- Learning distributed systems as a manager at Uber
The Entry-Level Crisis (23:01)
- Why junior hiring has been down for 5 straight years
- The "30% AI efficiency" trap destroying traditional entry paths
- Why GitHub is bucking the trend and hiring MORE juniors
- Practical advice: Build apps that earn $1 from strangers
Career Growth Strategies (33:13)
- Step 1: Crush your current job (no shortcuts)
- Why your side projects might not help your promotion
- The Venn diagram of personal growth vs company value
- Understanding what actually drives business impact
The Energy Theory (41:39)
- Why OpenAI ships so fast (hint: it's not their process)
- Energy vs Process: What actually drives results
- The Factorio principle of enjoying "boring" work
- How high-energy teams blast through mistakes
Connect with Gergely:
- Newsletter: https://pragmaticengineer.com
- Book: The Software Engineer's Guidebook - https://geni.us/uTUAyx
- Podcast: The Pragmatic Engineer Podcast - https://www.youtube.com/@pragmaticengineer/podcasts
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