Welcome to The Steady Beat, a weekly-ish round-up of hand-picked articles and resources for people who make software products: designers, engineers, product managers, and organizational leaders.
By the Numbers - Bon Voyager 1
17.5 millennia — The time Voyager 1 would take to travel just a single light year at its current speed.
14.8 billion miles — The distance from the Sun to Voyager 1 as of June 2023, making it the farthest human-made object in the universe.
1977 — The year Voyager 1 was launched, in the same year Jimmy Carter became president and Star Wars hit theaters.
40,000 years — The time Voyager 1 will need to pass within 1.6 light-years of the star Gliese 445.
67 MB — The data capacity of Voyager 1’s Digital Tape Recorder, a stark contrast to today’s data storage devices.
Atlas Obscura, 5m #engineering #productmanagement
Break It Down to Build It Up
In a world where complexity reigns supreme, Mirek Stanek’s latest piece on engineering leadership argues that the secret to scaling innovation and team autonomy lies in modularization. By breaking down large systems into smaller, self-contained modules, each with clear interfaces, organizations can maintain agility while growing. Drawing inspiration from Amazon’s famed “Two-Pizza Teams” and the principles of Domain-Driven Design, Stanek illustrates how modularization isn’t just a technical choice but a leadership strategy that empowers teams, simplifies communication, and drives continuous innovation.
Practical Engineering Management, 10m #engineering #management #leadership
Cookie-Cutter Portfolios Are Killing Your Career
Here’s the brutal truth: If your UX portfolio reads like a paint-by-numbers case study, you’re probably unhirable at design-mature companies. Most portfolios follow the same tired script—user interviews, personas, wireframes, prototypes—without a hint of the messy, non-linear reality of design work. Hiring managers see right through it. To stand out, tell the real story: embrace the chaos, show your struggles, and ditch the fantasy of perfect, linear design. Your future career depends on it.
matej latin, 7m #design #ux
Javascript Time Travel Gets an Upgrade
JavaScript’s handling of dates has always been a bit of a mess, especially when it comes to time zones. Enter the Temporal API, a game-changer that finally lets you work with ZonedDateTime objects, ensuring that your dates and times are accurate no matter where—or when—you are. Say goodbye to the confusing quirks of UTC and ISO formats; now, you can handle time zones, daylight saving changes, and even different calendar systems with ease. Look for it in the upcoming changes to ECMAScript, hopefully coming to browser near you shortly.
TimeTime.in, 6m #engineering #development
Continuous Coordination: The Steady Beat of Modern Teamwork
In the latest episode of the Refactoring Podcast, yours truly delves into “Continuous Coordination,” an open-source framework I co-created to bring order to the chaos of modern engineering teams. Drawing from over 25 years in tech, I share how my journey—from the trenches of startup integration at Constant Contact to the success of Status Hero—culminated in Steady. I highlight the importance of maintaining a “steady beat” through structured asynchronous communication, balancing small, frequent check-ins with broader goal updates to keep teams aligned without drowning in meetings.
Refactoring, 52m, #engineering #leadership #management
Less Meetings, More Context
Have you tried Steady? It’s an AI-powered coordination layer that eliminates 83% of meetings for software teams.
Steady runs in the background, distilling plans and progress from tools, teams, & people into tailored summaries, giving everyone the clarity they need to build outstanding products together. With Steady, everyone has continuous context at their fingertips, eliminating the need for burdensome shoulder taps, interruptions, and endless meetings.
Learn more at steady.space.
