How to Deal With a Toxic Top-Performer

How to Deal With a Toxic Top-Performer
8 minutes by Dave Bailey

Every founder hires a brilliant jerk. They start as a dream hire, then turn into a cultural liability. Here’s how to fix it by shifting from personality to structure.

New research: Is AI *actually* accelerating testing workflows?
sponsored by Rainforest QA

We surveyed 625 developers to find out which technologies actually make test automation faster and less painful. The unexpected results around AI's impact on test maintenance might make you rethink your automation strategy. Download the report to learn more.

2x
17 minutes by Darragh Curran

If we were to literally hit pause on further advancements, any engineering team just leveraging the already existing tools effectively should expect at least double their current productivity – a 2x improvement. Darragh shares his email to his R&D teams and the plan to make it happen.

Thayer Method
11 minutes by Mike Fisher

It’s easy to dismiss meetings as necessary evils. But when designed with intention, they can become some of the most valuable moments in a team’s week. Meetings where everyone comes prepared. Where we solve problems together. Where ideas are tested, refined, and built in real time. They should look less like a lecture, and more like a room full of smart people, standing at the whiteboard, figuring things out together.

Advice for aspiring managers
10 minutes by James Stanier

A lot has changed since the last time James gave this advice. Now, new managers must be hands-on, measure team performance quantitatively, and emphasize doing more with fewer resources. They should embrace AI as a productivity multiplier, adopt a scrappy entrepreneurial mindset, and practice rigorous performance management.

The High Cost of Being Low Maintenance
15 minutes by Ashley Willis

Ashley shares how he struggles with asking for help due to childhood conditioning and workplace dynamics where being "low maintenance" is valued. He explores how this reluctance can lead to burnout and actually hinder team dynamics, as it prevents collaboration and creates invisible suffering.

industry

• The New Skill in AI is Not Prompting, It's Context Engineering
• Vibe Coder Gets Legal Notice From DocuSign
• Anthropic wins key US ruling on AI training in authors' copyright lawsuit

security

• How I Scanned all of GitHub’s “Oops Commits” for Leaked Secrets
• North Korea-linked Supply Chain Attack Targets Developers with 35 Malicious npm Packages
• New Crypto-Jacking Attacks Target DevOps and AI Infrastructure

And the most popular article from the last issue was:

• Why engineers hate their managers