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Gergely's Now Page

A summary on what I'm doing now.

tl;dr

I spend almost all my time researching and writing The Pragmatic Engineer newsletter, recording The Pragmatic Engineer Podcast, or work related to The Software Engineer's Guidebook. Notice an interesting trend that could be relevant for software engineers at Big Tech and startups? Send me a message here.

I'm currently not taking on any additional engagements. I don't do interviews, talks, podcasts, AMAs, mentoring, product feedback, collaborations, calls, coffee chats, or other engagements. I also don't do partnerships or sponsorships and I do not invest in startups.

Read on for details on what I do, and what I don't do, and pointers on people to contact instead for some of these areas.

The Pragmatic Engineer Newsletter

I'm writing the #1 newsletter for engineering managers and senior engineers on Substack. Weekly issues with actionable advice for engineering leaders. Especially relevant for those in big tech and high-growth startups. Subscribe here.

The Pragmatic Engineer Podcast

A podcast for perfect anyone looking to level up their software engineering career with real-world advice and practical tactics. Watch or listen to episodes on:

The Software Engineer's Guidebook

I wrote a book on growing as a software engineer for close to four years. The paperback was released in November 2023, and the ebook and audibook in 2024. I am currently working to get translations available: The book is out in German and Korean. The Japanese, Chinese (traditional and simplified), Hungarian and Mongolian are work in progress. You can get in touch for publishing rights for other languages.

My other books:

Annual conference talk

I am doing one or two conference talks per year. The 2026 ones will be at:

Past ones:

Unfortunately, I have to say no to other invitations: both conferences and talks at companies. However, I can recommend other of experienced speakers who are either based in Amsterdam, or in the region, and are open to traveling to reasonable distances to give talks. See a list of them here.

The Pragmatic Engineer Blog and Social Media

Read past articles for the blog, or sign up to the RSS feed to not miss posts. I tend to post a lot more on the newsletter: but there are a few blog posts that do not make it there.

I'm active on social media: follow me on LinkedIn, on Twitter/X, and Threads.

Podcasts, interviews, talks, conferences [On hold]

Researching and writing my newsletter and recording my podcast takes up most of my time and other projects consume the rest. Unfortunately, I don't have the bandwidth for things I'd like to do below this line.

As of now, I am saying say no to all podcast, interviews, talk or conference requests. If you are looking for people to interview: I would recommend any of my past podcast guests as interesting people to interview or invite on a podcast to.

Partnering, collaborating, hopping on a call, coffee chats [No longer doing]

I get an increasing number of outreaches to chat about partnering, collaborating, meeting people, or just "hopping on a call."

Sadly, my answer to all of these is "no" for the simple reason that my plate is full already. For partnership and collaboration: as per my ethics policy I do not do any partnership or collaboration for any financial gain.

I am not looking for any partnerships or collaborations, and am no longer taking on advising, and stopped investing.

If I'm writing about a topic, I reach out to people and organizations directly if information might be helpful for my writing.

Mentoring [No longer doing]

I no longer do mentoring. However, I wrote a book that contains all the career advice I have: The Software Engineer's Guidebook. The book touches on "tiers" and types of companies, advice on how to succeed at various engineering levels (entry-level, senior, staff+) and pointers on a wide range of topics. The book took four years to write, and contains the 15 years of experience I had as an engineer and engineering manager.

I do recommend mentorship for faster growth and here is a list of places you can find software engineer mentors and a list for engineering manager and VP of Engineering coaches.

Advising and Angel Investing [Not taking on new ones]

I'm an advisor at mobie.dev, a startup revolutionizing the future of mobile tooling and one leading the shift left in mobile engineering. I'm also an advisor and small angel investor in a few other startups.

I invested/said yes to advising startups focusing on platform engineering (monorepos, mobile tooling, service discoverability & ownership, internal tooling) or payments. Both areas are ones I'm deeply familiar with.

As of July 2022, I am no longer looking to invest in startups or advise them: my plate is full. Also, I learned that being a small-time investor is not always as fun as I imagined.

To find angel investors for developer tools, I recommend checking out the Devtools Angels list made by swyx. I was part of this list while I was still actively investing.

Product feedback [Not doing]

Although I am flattered to be asked to give feedback on startup ideas or existing products, I do not do this because:

  • I'm no customer. I am most likely not a current or future customer of the product. So my feedback would be far less relevant.
  • I'm not an investor or advisor. I am not looking to invest or take on any more advisor roles. Another group of people to get feedback from are existing investors or those wanting to become an investor or advisor. They have a vested interest in helping businesses succeed both through advice and their network.
  • I don't have the time. Giving proper feedback means familiarizing myself with a product first. I would only do this if I would want to become a customer - meaning it solves a pressing problem I now have - or I wanted to invest. If neither is true, I won't take the time.

You probably don't need feedback from someone like me - someone with no vested interest in the success of your product. You really need feedback from current or future customers - who have problems to solve that they would pay for -, and current or future investors - who are willing to invest in products that could become a financial success. Seek them out instead.

I do give feedback on products I am either a customer of, or ones that solve a pressing business problem I have. However, these are very different products to ones that I write about. The products I am a customer of are mostly tools I use for running a one-person business.

Sponsorships, affiliates [Not doing, save for the podcast]

I don't take any form of newsletter or blog sponsorships. I don't do affiliates. For podcast sponsorships, please email podcast@pragmaticengineer.com.

For newsletter sponsorships: I can recommend tech publications and websites which offer sponsorships and ones I also like.

TechPays [On hold]

Building TechPays with a small team. It's a great place to get compensation information for tech workers in Europe. For now, most of the work is on hold on this one, though.

The Pragmatic Engineer Talent Collective [shut down]

I was running The Pragmatic Engineer Talent Collective - helping software engineers and engineering managers get matched with world-class and exciting companies. I shut it down after 2.5 years and shared the reason behind this decision.

This page was inspired by Derek Sivers' now page.

Last updated .