Gergely Orosz (@GergelyOrosz) / X

Gergely Orosz

46.3K posts

Gergely Orosz

@GergelyOrosz

Writing @Pragmatic_Eng, the #1 software engineering newsletter on Substack. Author of @EngGuidebook. Formerly Uber & Skype.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

pragmaticengineer.com

Joined April 2009

Pinned
Gergely Orosz
@GergelyOrosz
Jan 21, 2023
Substack launched analytics insights and: wow. Thank you to everyone reading @Pragmatic_Eng!
Gergely Orosz
@GergelyOrosz
Jul 7, 2025
In 2025, my new washing machine / drying machine takes 3-5 seconds to “boot up” just so I can *select* the program In 1990 I remember our washing machine took 0 seconds to “boot up” because you just had a physical switch to select the program Sometimes progress feels backwards
Gergely Orosz
@GergelyOrosz
Sep 1, 2024
Ok Mullvad VPN is the example of security *by design*: The company does not store any form of data (no IPs, no logs.) They don’t even offer recurring subscriptions (!!) because doing so would force them to store data that can identify people. No affiliation: just awesome
jack
@jack
Sep 1, 2024
mullvad.net
Gergely Orosz
@GergelyOrosz
Jan 6, 2025
Imagine having a $300K+ year job at Apple. Then notice Apple matches charity donations up to $10K/year and deciding… you want that additional $10K/yr. So you defraud Apple with a fake charity to funnel the matching contribution back to you. 6 ex-employees did this. Just… wow:
Gergely Orosz
@GergelyOrosz
Aug 27, 2024
I learned that car thefts have practically disappeared in Hungary in a decade (reduced by ~95%: from 7,000 thefts in 2012 to ~300 in 2023.) How? The police founded a unit specialized in car thefts. They went after the illegal resellers and repair shops disassembling stolen cars
Gergely Orosz
@GergelyOrosz
Jul 9, 2025
There was this engineer on my team a while back who was: a good dev, but not the best dev. Got everything done. But had zero ego, a very nice personality, and got along with *everyone* on the team very well. When he joined, the team became... better. Nicer. More balanced.
Gergely Orosz
@GergelyOrosz
Apr 16, 2025
Interesting to reflect how much of an impact @xkcdComic has had on tech culture - expressing making (mostly) universal truths via simple to understand comics So many golden nuggets. Like this classic:
Gergely Orosz
@GergelyOrosz
May 4, 2022
Replying to @GergelyOrosz
This served as a valuable lesson for me on: Diverse loops matter not just for diverse candidates: but to see how candidates respond to people not like them Some more advice on hiring diverse teams:
Hiring (and Retaining) a Diverse Engineering Team
From blog.pragmaticengineer.com
Gergely Orosz
@GergelyOrosz
Nov 20, 2024
Did I see this right. The CEO of Zomato is hiring a Chief of Staff. It's an *unpaid* position for all of the first year, where the applicants needs to pay 2M INR (about $24,000) Tell me you are hiring someone who comes from money without telling me you are doing this.
Deepinder Goyal
@deepigoyal
Nov 20, 2024
Update: I am looking for a chief of staff for myself.
Gergely Orosz
@GergelyOrosz
Feb 19, 2024
My first manager at Uber started a GitHub page back at the time with resources to become a more proficient developer - ones he personally found helpful (he did not have a CS degree). I realized he is *still* updating it, 7 years later! A neat list: github.com/charlax/profes…
Gergely Orosz
@GergelyOrosz
Jan 15, 2025
Interesting: Meta created React Native. It’s used (with components at least) in their flagship apps: Facebook (iOS, Android), Instagram (Meta Quest), Messenger (desktop). Google created Flutter. And yet none of their flagship apps use it (Gmail, YouTube, Maps, Calendar).
Gergely Orosz
@GergelyOrosz
Nov 13, 2022
This is what micromanaging from the top looks like, when the CEO *thinks* they can tell the source of the problem and how to fix it, just by looking at it. It’s incredibly frustrating when it happens to you. It’s rare to see it this public. Good luck to engineers in the weeds.
Elon Musk
@elonmusk
Nov 13, 2022
Btw, I’d like to apologize for Twitter being super slow in many countries. App is doing >1000 poorly batched RPCs just to render a home timeline!
Gergely Orosz
@GergelyOrosz
Jan 20, 2023
We'll look back at this week as an inflection point when Big Tech lost its former attractiveness. It will be stories like Justin's, and the countless ones to be told, where many realize that, during layoffs, people become numbers, and 8% of those numbers need to be "marked."
Gergely Orosz
@GergelyOrosz
Apr 12, 2025
Tried to reserve 4 seats next to each other for a movie where there were a total of 5 seats remaining free in the row The web app did not allow booking seats to have an empty seat left so was impossible But check was on client-side: so I overrode it Love being a dev sometimes