Jake Wright

First written in 2018 and now updated, Monzo's engineering principles encapsulate what we value and what we expect engineers to embody. What we value has evolved over time, and our principles should change to remain aligned with that – we don’t want these to be just words on a page, but a useful resource to guide decision making, inspire better systems, and be the foundation for a culture where engineers can thrive. https://lnkd.in/eKzXEJMi Proud of how they turned out.

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Unpopular Opinion: Experienced developers who '10x' themselves using AI are full of it. Sorry, I literally do not believe you. Of all the posts I've read of experienced SW developers who claim AI has made them '10x' more productive (and yes there are LOTs who literally say this) - not one has shown any evidence . The best I have seen is people who say "I finished this project in X days with AI and it WOULD HAVE taken me 10X days without AI'. Oh ? and how do you know that? One of the most important thing I have learned from 40+ years of SW development - 'we' suck at estimating how long things will take. Really Really Badly. Finally people have started doing scientific-ish studies to validate these claims. First result hot-off-the presses - 5+ year experienced SW developers given random real tasks performed 19% slower using AI then not. AND - most interesting, they believed they did it 20% faster. https://lnkd.in/gYSW4C8i

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🚨 The top 10% of Software Engineers in London are now earning over £200K. And while hedge funds and quant firms still dominate the top of London’s pay charts, Levels.fyi data shows that for engineers specialising in ML/AI, the top 10% are now earning around £275K.

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GPT-5 has landed. What does it mean for the UK market? OpenAI just raised the bar again. Better reasoning, better context, and a step toward multi-modal fluency. I'm expecting a fresh wave of AI-native tools hitting. The gap between “AI-enabled” and “AI-built” is about to widen. Talent strategy gets harder. You’ll need engineers who can fine-tune models, not just consume them. And with London becoming a magnet for frontier AI, those £2B+ infrastructure investments suddenly feel very well-timed. The UK has the compute, the capital, and the talent. The question is: who’s going to move first? #MethodAI #ChatGPT5 #LLM

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What makes a great Software Engineer CV? I've seen some great CVs recently, so I wanted to highlight a few takeaways that really stood out... 🟣 Show what you built, how you built it, and what it achieved Don’t just list frameworks, give context and outcomes. E.g. Built a product recommendation system using Python that increased conversion rates by 15%, generating over $900K in new revenue. 🟣 Concise, readable formatting Avoid clutter. Make it easy to scan. Bullet points > blocks of text. A well-structured CV feels like clean code, it builds trust instantly. 🟣 Recent and relevant Keep older or unrelated experience light. Prioritise the skills and projects that match where you’re heading next. 🟣 GitHub / LeetCode presence Even if it’s not perfect, a few well-documented repos, or a strong LeetCode profile can highlight your problem-solving ability and coding style. If you’re working on your CV and want feedback, feel free to message me.

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The amount of utter nonsense I see posted here which masquerades as 'advice' for young developers blows my mind. Yes linked in is the worst site on the internet which we all feel strangely compelled to exist on anyway, but even so... My advice to young developers is: a. Try to find something you genuinely enjoy b. Work on getting better at it c. Ignore linked in posts That's it.

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Declarative beats duct tape. I spoke to Eddie Jaoude, Lead Education Engineer at Kestra at the Big Data London, to unpack how teams actually ship with modern orchestration. Here is the flow we covered: • Why defining workflows declaratively changes the game for developers coming from Python DAGs • How teams adopt Kestra step by step without a risky forklift migration • Using the Playground in Kestra 1.0 to test steps safely and tighten the feedback loop • Plugging into existing stacks with plugins and a language-agnostic design so you do not rewrite everything • The first usage patterns Eddie sees in the wild, from scheduled jobs and data pipelines to event-driven tasks Clear takeaways. Fewer moving parts. Faster iteration. Stronger reliability. #data #ai #kestra #bigdataldn #theravitshow

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Jane Street made $13.4bn last year and kept 48% of it as profit. Goldman? 26%. Barclays? 9%. That margin gap says everything. I’m speaking with loads of senior and VP-level devs in banks right now looking to move. Many junior devs still think a big bank title carries more weight than actually building real stuff at a prop shop. But when you look under the hood, the difference is night and day. At the prop firms: • Smaller teams, tighter feedback loops. • No fluff, you’re building things that directly drive PnL. • Better tech, better comp, more ownership. • Everyone’s sharp - no passengers. Even on my side as a recruiter, the difference is obvious. With prop shops, I’ve got a direct line to the hiring manager or internal talent lead. It’s fast, clear, and collaborative. Banks? It’s a maze - long cycles, no single point of contact, zero visibility, not much personality, and rarely any excitment or passion around the roles or what they are building. If you're a strong dev or quant still in banking and wondering why things feel slow or stale, this might be why. Feel free to reach out if you want to discuss the move. #PropTrading #QuantFinance #HFT #BanksVsProp #RecruitmentInsights #TradingTech

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After discovering what 'vibe coding' truly meant earlier this week, it got me thinking... How much of an impact will it have on the role of a Software Engineer? One concern that was shared amongst the leaders I spoke to was how much it will affect junior/mid-level engineers coming into the industry now. There's a chance that hey won't have had to do the 'manual' work when it comes to building a product, as they'll rely on Cursor or something similar to do that for them. Is that okay considering AI is here to stay? Or do engineers still need to have the fundamental knowledge of how to build & write the code themselves, instead of relying on AI prompts? Keen to hear people's thoughts on this! PS - anyone else think vibe coding was more like an engineer sat listening to lofi music in a room with LED lights? Just me? Guys?

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I actually really like the idea of non-coders vibe coding. Sometimes it's hard to get across requirements and software can be so abstract at times so if someone could show you a vibed out blueprint of something they want then it can be easier to discuss and determine a solution. Use it for production? Personally, I think it opens you up to all sorts of vulnerabilities that will just sink your product and create a very expensive lesson. A mock out of what something could be? Without a doubt. Vibing still forces you to ask questions of yourself, like: - What does this page even do? - Where does this button go? - Do users even care about this? - How should this UI flow work?

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I mentioned one of my “down the pub” software development opinions to James Lewis at EventCentric. He suggested that I mention it to Kent Beck and so, while I remember. But definitely, the tone here, is “crazy talk over a pint.” ———- XP optimises software development for folks with ADHD. The Extreme Tuesday Club is likely a hotbed of ADHD diagnoses. TDD, CI, Small Releases: we need those rewards to keep coming in regular doses. Pair Programming: “Stay on target, stay on target” Refactoring, Boy Scout Rule: “Ooh, while I am here, I should fix that as well. Now where was I? Oh the test list.” Sustainable Pace: We can only focus so long in one stretch, even with the above. Planning Game: one story at a time, don’t get distracted by other things. Business value, not “shiny thing.” Small stories because we get bored easily. Whole team working so that we can get to that shiny story faster. Osmotic Communication: Quick, let me blurt out my idea before I get distracted and forget I wonder if there is a correlation between XP teams achieving flow, and XP teams filled with neurodivergent people who have figured a coping mechanism for productivity.

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Big news for the Zero Knowledge space: Sindri have just released Explorer, dubbed 'The Hugging Face of ZK Apps'. For anyone not familiar with hugging face, this is a huge AI library where devs can share and use pre-built AI tools - this is exactly what Explorer is bringing to the ZK space. Explorer will allow teams to go from zero to ZK in minutes rather than months, building apps with ready made ZK components. With this, you have no code scaling via Sindri's integrations, and everything can be handled through a single API. Building this out will be a collaborative effort, for anyone interested in getting involved - Creator Rewards are on the way very soon. Very interested to see how this is adopted moving forward, lmk your thoughts! 👇 #zk #zeroknowledge #web3 #blockchain #web3jobs #blockchainjobs

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