Tech Productivity Issue #399 (AI Is Removing the Middle Class of SWE)

Issue #399 (AI Is Removing the Middle Class of SWE) 10/05/26

An Office That Grows At The Same Rate You Do
Most office decisions force a guess: how big will the team be in three years? Guess high, you pay for empty desks. Guess low, you're renegotiating a lease mid-sprint.

Regus removes the guesswork. Private, fully equipped offices that flex with your team — start with two desks, scale to a full floor, or move to a bigger space in the network whenever you're ready. One simple monthly price covers everything: internet, cleaning, utilities, and admin support. No extra fees, no surprises.

Tech Productivity readers can see spaces, layouts, and pricing for their team in under two minutes – no commitment required. (Availability, pricing, and configurations vary by location. Part of the IWG Network.)

Find Your Team's Workspace 🡺

If you like to read something that works your brain, but maybe haven't picked anything up lately, you'll want to check out this Hacker News thread where a reader asks What are you reading?

Similar to other "Ask HN" threads, except this one seems to be a one-time thread. Maybe it will catch on as a regular feature, but there are more than 800 comments, so that should keep everyone busy for a while.

I like that the suggestions include non-fiction as well as fiction like sci-fi and other genres that you might not associate with 'working the brain'. Lots to check out, but even if you find one good one here, that's great.

Reading books is definitely something we should promote more, especially due to the overabundance of short-form content that people obsess over nowadays (case in point: see the second article below).

Now on to this week's hand-picked productivity links!

Tools & Apps

4ga Boards — An open source, straightforward real-time Kanban boards management app for intuitive task tracking, featuring an elegant dark mode, collapsible todo lists, and multitasking tools.

AskForFile — A file request tool for collecting client documents, photos, videos, forms, and project files with a private upload link, checklist, and no recipient account required.

Meco — Enjoy newsletters in a space designed for reading. Meco is a distraction-free space for reading and discovering newsletters, separate from the inbox. Add your newsletters in seconds and liberate your inbox today! sponsor

Donivo — A platform to craft and submit (or schedule) a social media post to up to eight different platforms: Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, Threads, and Bluesky, with option to tailor each.

Glanced — An RSS reader to follow news, blogs, newsletters, and podcasts in a single space, with AI summaries, top stories, full-text search, saved searches, and a discovery catalog.

Cliptray — A clipboard manager for Windows and Mac that keeps every copy and all are searchable in milliseconds, built for a copy-paste-heavy workflow.

yapyap — A local-first voice transcription app for Windows, Mac, and Linux that can turn the same hour of content into a summary, to-do list, or quote sheet.

Articles & Resources

AI Is Removing the Middle Class of Software Engineering — A sobering consideration of how things have changed in just a few years for senior software engineers but the author does clarify that he's not anti-AI.

Neuroscientists Shed Light on the Illusion of Learning From Short Videos — Not a surprise: "Using social media applications to digest bite-sized educational content actually reduces a person’s ability to remember the information, according to new research."

Move Over, Google — The Magnificent Seven won’t lead the market forever. Our analysts believe that shift is already underway. See the 7 stocks they think could lead by 2026. sponsor

Hindsight Bias: The Leadership Trap Hiding in Plain Sight — A flaw in leadership that can prevent teams from learning from past mistakes and being honest about reviewing past decisions.

Stop Making a 5-Year Plan (Do This Instead) — The advice here is to take steps and make progress based on what's happening now, rather than trying to predict the next half decade based only on the past.

Lost Confidence — A look at why 'confidence frameworks' cannot successfully help us make good decisions and why it's better to focus on uncertainty rather than probability.

Sense of Urgency — Is it healthy to always encourage a sense of urgency in your team? In this article, the teams in question are in a franchise of restaurants and bakeries.

Suggestions?

Have a suggestion for a productivity-related tool, article, or other resource? Send me a direct message via X or chat via Bluesky and I’ll consider including it in a future issue.

Stay productive!

Louis
Follow on X • Bluesky • PayPal.me • Advertise

Not subscribed? Visit techproductivity.co to join today.