10X Engineering: A Series
5 min read
About me
aka mastersilv3r@github or ayush-ghai@linkedin
Hi you may call me Ayush. I am the author and the facilitator of this series. Here I will take you through a journey of exploration of the wonderful and exciting world of technology.
For me engineering is a craft I enjoy very much. I also wear other hats like a founder, innovator, teacher, mentor, family, friend and of course eventually everything human! :-)
By virtue of intention, effort and destiny's touch, I landed in IIT Kanpur in 2002 to study engineering. And by stroke of destiny, I landed in Computer Science department while I wanted to originally take up aeronautics. That's another story. I will be sharing more of my journey through stories as we progress in this series. But here I want so state that couple of times in my lifetime, I considered moving out of tech to pursue other callings like an MBA or social work. I am glad I choose to stay invested in tech. It continues to be my way of expression, innovation and service to the world. I built or continue to build somethings I feel very satisfied about.
For me tech is my ikigai. It does four things for me: I love to play with it. It earns me livelihood. It helps me grow. It is also my means to serve the society.
I started Godspeed for the mission to make tech better and easier for myself and the world. This series is as much part of the mission as is the tools that we make for the same purpose.
I am starting this series to share what I have learned with the world. Here I will focus on the path of tech, its purpose and engineering.
I will be maintaining the content of this particular series and run this program called 10X Engineer, aimed primarily for tech professionals, students and innovators, who are equally desirous of learning and growing in their journey.
About the series: 10X Engineering
At Godspeed Systems, we believe in excellence and want every engineer to be a 10X version of himself or herself. For the same every engineer needs to
Have a certain mindset called the 10X mindset
Continuously develop understanding, information and knowhow
Keep on to play, serve, learn and earn
Hence we will be running this series where we share with the world whatever little we know or are making, and also continue to learn and upgrade ourselves. Consider 10X Engineering not as a course but a guide designed to empower developers and teams at every stage, providing a systemic approach to thinking, solution design and application.
Are concepts more important or the means of their application?
Before we delve to the list of topics, lets spend a minute on this discussion.
Often developers and even senior engineers or leaders focus on tools rather than end outcome for them and their organisations. For ex. I want (my team or myself) to learn Java or Nodejs so that my job prospects are better. Ofcourse, to a level true. But is it the complete truth? Should Java or MERN stack be the end of your world and capability? Should you be open or curious to playing with and understanding more toys like Rust, or a meta-framework like Godspeed? In a world where in 5 years technology is going to be massively democratised and new tools will continuously merge, should engineers be focusing on the tools as the main thing?
IMO tools are not the most important thing. What makes the difference between excellent and poor engineering is alignment with the larger purpose of the project, a well done design and its application using fundamentals and first principles. The means like programming languages and tools are here to help humans apply concepts in building great things. So a 10X engineer is strong on concepts, and can apply those fast and properly with any tools.
A 10X engineer is like a really good athlete who can run well with any shoes. A novice athlete can not run well with even the best shoes.
In this series, there will be a recommendation from our side but you are indeed welcome to pick any toys you wish to play the game with. We have the freedom to choose and switch between the tools that serve our purpose.
Topics every dev should know
These are some of the topics which we at Godspeed believe every engineer must know, from a little bit to expert level knowledge. Having this holistic overview of the scope of modern software development, will give any developer, at any stage, an edge in terms of systemic thinking and solution design. You do not need to become a master in everything, but even a fair idea or overview of most, along with an expertise in some, helps us become 10X engineers and solution designers.
We will keep enriching this content. You are welcome to share with us, any missing topics or material from the internet, which can be linked here for reference and further study.
For participating in the learning and sharing journey as a community, you can join us on Discord, Github, Youtube, social channels and subscribe to the blog's newsletter.
The chapters
The following chapters start from student level, to SDE1/2/3 and go to the architect level. We will keep adding links here, as the articles appear.
Chapter 2 - Programming advanced
Chapter 3 - Modern software architecture
- Full stack apps, microservices, serverless, event driven systems
Chapter 4 - The world of data and datastores
Chapter 5: Security
Chapter 6: Performance profiling & debugging
Chapter 7: OS and networking
Chapter 9: Containerization and scaling strategies
Chapter 10: Continuous integration & Deployment
Chapter 11: Observability and monitoring
Chapter 12: ML/AI
Chapter 12: Advanced Topics
Stay tuned for the series. We have a long way to go.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.Robert Frost. "Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening."