Overview
Connections
News
Salaries
Products
People
Growth
Offices
Financials
Overview
The True Engineer is an engineering leadership and software development publication platform hosted on Substack. Authored by Adlet Balzhanov, a senior software engineering lead with background in Big Tech and high-growth enterprise scale-ups, the publication delivers monthly long-form analytical essays, career frameworks, and strategic insights for software developers, engineering managers, and technology executives. Operating under a creator-driven digital subscription model, the newsletter focuses on technical leadership tactics, staff-level engineering practices, organizational dynamics within large tech companies, and navigating the operational impacts of AI on software development.
News
If LLMs can't write, I doubt it can lead us to AGI
I've been testing every new AI model the same way for a while now. I give it a real coding task, and more often than not it comes back with something solid, impressive results. Then I give it a pile of good writing samples and ask it to write an article o
Read more
Report
I've been living inside DynamoDB for a while
I've been living inside DynamoDB for a while now, building and scaling a distributed system on AWS that has to survive couriers, customers, and agents all hammering it at once (at a scale of 10+ million orders per day). Along the way, I collected a pile o
Read more
Report
10 system design rules I always come back to
I've been compiling these system design interview rules for years. Friends found them useful. Figured it was time to share them properly.Rule 1 - System design is all tradeoffs. There's no perfect choice, just better or worse ones.Rule 2 - Good design sta
Read more
Report
The Moving Floor
Most engineers think careers are ladders.You start at the bottom, improve your skills, work harder than everyone else, and slowly climb upward through merit. The assumption underneath most career advice is: become exceptional enough, and the system will e
Read more
Report
Takeaways from "On Writing Well"
Engineers like to think of code as something you refine. You remove what isn't needed, simplify what is, and try to leave it in a state where the next person doesn't have to struggle to understand it.And then we sit down to write.The document fills up qui
Read more
Report
SQL vs NoSQL: How to Answer This in 2026
Modern databases are all good enough. If your system is falling over, it is almost never because Postgres is too weak or Mongo cannot keep up.When the SQL vs. NoSQL question comes up, that's how you avoid sounding like you're quoting a 2015 blog post.The
Read more
Report
I Wasted My First Years in Tech on the Wrong Things
I would have been forever grateful if someone gave me this advice earlier.The "Now What?" trapMany engineers very early in their careers think they should become Engineering Managers at any cost. They take on any task or do any favor just to get this role
Read more
Report
Adlet Balzhanov Substack
Monthly 5-minute essays from a senior engineer at Big Tech. Worth every minute, imho.
Read more
Report
Sorry if this is a dumb question, but…
You've probably heard it in a meeting: "Sorry if this is a dumb question, but…" Most people treat that phrase like a social apology. Something you say to soften the risk of speaking up. But if you know what you're doing, it's actually a power move.Prefaci
Read more
Report
Show more news