Tech Lead Journal23 Jun 2025

#221 - Writing for Developers: How to Create Content People Read and Share - Piotr Sarna

Feeling like you have valuable technical insights to share but struggle to put them into words? You’re not alone.

In this episode, Piotr Sarna, author of “Writing for Developers” and an experienced open-source maintainer, shares the common hurdles developers face in writing and provides practical tips to get started. Discover how cultivating a writing habit can not only boost your personal brand but also improve your technical skills and create new career opportunities.

Key topics discussed:

The Writing Challenge: Why many developers who have interesting things to say don’t write and the importance of writing culture in a company.
Finding Your First Topic: How to identify valuable topics from your daily work, even if you think they’re not interesting enough or have already been written about.
Overcoming Writer’s Block: Practical tips to overcome the fear of writing, including dealing with imposter syndrome and language concerns.
Leveraging AI for Writing: How to effectively use AI as a reviewer to find logical fallacies, get feedback, and improve your writing without sacrificing authenticity.
Proven Blog Post Patterns: Learn about effective patterns like the “Bug Hunt” to create engaging and educational content.
Promoting Your Writing: Strategies to get your work in front of a larger audience, from company blogs to social media and content aggregators.
Beyond the Blog Post: Discover how writing can open doors to speaking at conferences and even writing a book.

Timestamps:

(00:00) Trailer & Intro
(02:06) Career Turning Points
(04:30) The Challenge of Writing for Developers
(06:08) The Importance of Writing Culture
(08:36) Piotr’s Journey to Writing Books
(11:19) The Impact of Writing on Engineering Culture
(13:39) How to Overcome Common Excuses for Not Writing
(16:32) Finding The First Blog Post Topic
(20:32) Tips on How to Start Writing
(22:19) The Importance of Goal and Perspective in Writing a Draft
(24:55) The Use of AI in Writing
(29:01) AI Prompts to Improve Your Writing
(30:14) The Best LLM Model for Writing
(31:53) The Best Workflow Working with AI
(33:41) Blog Post Pattern: Bug Hunt
(37:16) Blog Post Pattern: Thoughts on Trends
(40:13) The Importance of Promoting Our Writing
(42:47) How to Promote Your Writing Independently
(45:00) Future Opportunities of Writing
(47:55) Writing as a Developer
(49:02) 3 Tech Lead Wisdom

_____

Piotr Sarna’s Bio
Piotr Sarna is a software engineer who is keen on open source projects and the Rust and C++ languages. He previously developed an open source distributed file system and had a brief adventure with the Linux kernel. He’s also a long-time contributor and maintainer of ScyllaDB, as well as libSQL and Turso. Piotr graduated from University of Warsaw with a Master’s degree in computer science.

Follow Piotr:

LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/sarna-dev
Twitter – x.com/sarna_dev
GitHub – github.com/psarna
Website – bio.sarna.dev
Write That Blog! – writethat.blog
Interview with Tech Bloggers – writethatblog.substack.com

📚 Writing for Developers – https://www.manning.com/books/writing-for-developers

Like this episode?
Show notes & transcript: techleadjournal.dev/episodes/221.
Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.
Buy me a coffee or become a patron.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(282)

The IT/OT Handbook: From Silos to Sustainable Digitalization - David Ariens & Willem van Lammeren

Why can’t you “move fast and break things” in a factory? Because a small software bug doesn’t just crash an app, it can shut down a plant the size of a small city. David and Willem explain the hidden ...

28 Sep 1h 7min

Don't Outsource Your Thinking: How to Lead in the AI-Native Era - Emilie Schario

What’s the one rule that matters most when AI writes most of your code? Emilie says it comes down to a single line: don’t outsource your thinking.In this episode, Emilie Schario, co-founder of Kilo Co...

7 Sep 59min

The Father of AI Assistant on Why Joy Comes Before Success - Kevin Surace

If you’re not using AI five times an hour, you’re already behind, says the man who built the first AI assistant back in 1998. Kevin explains why that pace is now the baseline, not the exception, for d...

24 Aug 55min

Software Engineering Laws Every Developer Must Know in the AI Era - Milan Milanovic

Does moving faster with AI mean you get to skip the laws that governed every software project before it? Milan Milanovic argues the opposite, the old laws of software engineering now apply twice as ha...

10 Aug 1h 1min

Signals & Levers: Systems Thinking to Navigate Software Delivery Illusions - Elisabeth Hendrickson & Joel Tosi

(04:48) Brought to you by SpeechifyAITired of text-to-speech that sounds robotic or costs too much at scale? SpeechifyAI's new Simba 3.2 model ranks #1 on Artificial Analysis for realness, priced unde...

3 Aug 1h 17min

From Technical Debt to Triple Debt: The Hidden Cost of AI-Generated Code

Is vibe coding quietly draining the thing that makes teams effective: their shared understanding? Margaret breaks down her new “triple debt” model, and why cognitive debt might be the one nobody’s tra...

27 Jul 1h 10min

Ex-Gojek CTO: Why the Age of AI Rewards Builders as Judgment Becomes Expensive

If expertise is becoming almost free, why is judgment becoming the most expensive skill in tech? Ajey Gore, former Gojek CTO, explains why the age of AI agents rewards builders over typists.In this ep...

13 Jul 1h 22min

The AI Productivity Paradox: Why 10X Output Doesn't Mean 10X Business Outcome

What if optimizing for AI output is actually slowing your company down? When code becomes nearly free to produce, the organizations still measuring productivity by output are solving the wrong problem...

29 Jun 1h 5min