Now that we’re into 2019, we wanted to share our top ten engineering blogs that the team here at Hackbright comes to time and again for inspiration, advice, and education. Some of these engineering blogs are from major tech corporations in Silicon Valley, others are open-source spaces with contributions and research from engineers of all-levels, and some are helmed by women in tech that we admire. Whether you need advice on project management, inspiration from a fellow female engineer, or general software engineering tips or education, you can find what you need in these blogs.
The common thread in these various blogs is quality content that we trust to inform, excite, and lead the way as we work to #changetheratio in tech.
Here’s our list of the best engineering blogs:
- Facebook Code blog
- Pinterest Engineering blog
- The Practical Dev
- Sentry blog
- Slack Engineering Blog
- Scott Berkun Blog
- Toptal Engineering Blog
- Coding Horror
- Joel on Software
- Martin Fowler
Top Ten Software Engineering Blogs of 2019:
Facebook Code blog
The Facebook Code blog is a great resource to stay up-to-date with the latest open source project releases, team updates, and upcoming events from Facebook Engineering. In particular, their post on React 16: A look inside an API-compatible rewrite of our frontend UI library stood out this year. We were fascinated by the thorough, in-depth updates on the pulse of React.js development and changes.
Pinterest Engineering blog
Described as “inventive engineers building the first visual discovery engine, 100 billion ideas and counting,” the Pinterest blog is a veritable cornucopia of engineering and coding insights and ideas. Pinterest is also built on a Python tech stack, which is the same language we teach at Hackbright, so we come back to their blog for examples of Python in action.
The Practical Dev 
dev.to is an open-source forum for programmers to ask questions and share their expertise. We love it for the interesting and concise articles and accessibility to every level of expertise.
Sentry blog
Sentry provides open-source error tracking to help development teams monitor and fix crashes in real time. Their blog covers a diverse range of topics ranging from technical challenges to tech culture. It’s a great read for anyone looking to get more visibility into the world of coding. They also offer profiles of their engineers, giving readers an idea of the team and culture. (Bonus: check out their post for Hackbright alumna Dena Metili Mwangi!)
Slack Engineering Blog
Called Several People Are Coding, the Slack Engineering Blog features content from the entire engineering team – junior to senior staffers included. A constantly growing and evolving company, they share awesome technical posts on current challenges as they scale and develop the Engineering organization. We also love Slack’s culture of mentorship, impact, and growth.
Scott Berkun Blog
Berkun’s blog is often a crowd favorite, even though he doesn’t post exclusively about software engineering or technology. However, many of his posts about creativity and design highlight extremely useful concepts for engineers. Berkun spent quite a few years at Microsoft and WordPress.com acquiring engineering wisdom; and he’s also written several books. Plus, he posts often and thoroughly. His articles Are engineers more creative than designers? and The top mistakes UX designers make are strong examples of why Berkun’s Blog is one of the must-read blogs for software engineers.
Toptal Engineering Blog
Toptal helps freelance engineers, programmers, coders, and developers connect with companies. Their blog is extremely thorough and dives deep into its topics. Many of the freelancers using Toptal write posts. So there are many contributors to the blog and each is a specialist in their field. This makes the blog versatile and specialized. It also allows for a continuous and robust flow of content. There’s always something new. They break up the Engineering Blog section into the following topics: mobile, web front-end, back-end, and data science and databases.
Coding Horror
Jeff Atwood is the writer for the blog Coding Horror. And he’s known for useful posts filled with humor (hey, no one ever said that software engineering blogs have to be dull). Atwood likes to look at software development from the user, or human, perspective. His belief that computers are really just a “reflection of the people using them” gives his blog a unique perspective. His posts are easy to digest and often focus on new technology. He doesn’t post many tutorials since he’s the co-founder of StackExchange which covers most of the how-to articles. You may want to peruse YouTube channels about software development if you’re on the lookout for tutorials.
Joel on Software
Joel Spolsky is the mastermind behind the blog Joel on Software and he’s become one of the tried-and true software bloggers. Incidentally, he’s Jeff Atwood’s partner as the co-founder of StackExchange. He started publishing on his blog back in 2000. He’s still writing posts, but not as often as he used to. That said, his older posts are still great to reference. For instance, his post, Strange and maddening rules, talks about how to best overcome programming roadblocks or questions.
Martin Fowler
Martin Fowler is another one of the veterans in the world of software engineering. He began his work with software in the 80s. Since then, he’s written a handful of books all about software development. His blog has in-depth content on refactoring, design, noSQL, DSL, continuous delivery, microservices, and agile. Each of these sections will often contain multiple blog posts about the respective topic. Fowler explains that he has noticed how his understanding of early software development has improved his understanding of new information systems. This ability is especially useful since his blog is still active. So, you can find many past posts, but also receive his informed opinions on current trends and solutions.
These software engineering blogs each offer unique insights on software engineering. Some are industry favorites, while others are our personal go-to blogs. If you’re looking for more tutorial options, check out this article about YouTube channels for software engineers. What are you favorite engineering blogs? Let us know in the comments below.
Interested in learning more? Check out our upcoming Part-Time Prep Course and our immersive 12-week full-time or 24-week part-time Software Engineering Programs. Hackbright Academy offers a deferred tuition program to select, eligible students.