The Best of Hybrid Hacker in 2024! 🎄
Plus a sneak peek to what comes next
Hey everyone! Merry Christmas! 🎄 I hope you are having some amazing holidays, surrounded by your loved ones.
This is a time to pause and reflect (and eat!), and personally we are doing just that. This has been an incredible year for Hybrid Hacker:
📬 We went from 15K to 40K subscribers
🔒 We went from 80 to 230 paid subscribers
✏️ We wrote 50+ articles
And most of all, we joined forces with Refactoring!
The collaboration has been fantastic so far: a lot of Hybrid Hacker readers were already subscribed to both newsletters (around 30%!), and there is a strong overlap in terms of values, topics, and even style, between the two.
This allowed us to naturally do things together: Nicola now writes on Refactoring as well, I (Luca) write on HH, and we run a shared private community.
So starting in 2025, we are taking an extra step and merging the two newsletters into a single, bigger publication.
What does this mean? 👇
🎉 Merging with Refactoring
Most of you are already subscribed to Refactoring, so for you nothing will change!
Instead, for those who only receive Hybrid Hacker articles, you will start receiving Refactoring articles as well, for free. If you don’t want them, no worry! You can easily opt-out by unsubscribing at the bottom of each email. However, you should really give us a chance! 👇
Our goal is to make Refactoring the best ecosystem for your professional growth in tech, and we are doing this in four ways:
📬 Content — it all starts with great weekly content. We do this both in written form (essays) and video/audio (voiceovers, podcasts) to make sure people can always find something they like based on their consumption preferences.
🏛️ Library — we maintain an obsessively curated library where all the content we create is organized by learning track and topic. This is crucial to make sure you can always find what you need, across 250+ articles.
💬 Community — the private community is where you can give and receive bespoke support from 900+ expert tech leaders. We get together for live calls, masterminds, book reviews, and more.
🪴 Coaching — this is new! We announced it just last week. You can now receive 1:1 support from professional engineering coaches, supported by the Refactoring content and ideas.
These pillars work as progressive ways to invest more into your professional growth, based on your appetite for it: they go from the most serendipitous and passive experience (newsletter articles), to the most targeted and interactive one (coaching), with everything in between 👇
So, we look forward to an incredible 2025, where we will keep pushing to do our very best work.
To celebrate this milestone, we are issuing an exclusive discount to join the full plan of Refactoring (and Hybrid Hacker). If you subscribe below you will get 20% off Refactoring + complimentary access to the full Hybrid Hacker 👇
🌟 The Best Articles of 2024
And now, it’s time to highlight the best articles we have written in 2024! Here is our personal top 10:
Should You Stay Technical as an Engineering Manager? — navigating the balance between engineering management and technical expertise.
Engineer’s Guide to Linkedin — a simple guide for engineers and leaders on how to leverage LinkedIn for career growth.
Dealing with Impostor Syndrome — practical advice on how to deal with one of the most common psychological states in engineering.
My 25-Year Engineering Career Retrospective — reflecting on my engineering career and what I could have done better.
How to Write Documentation — an extensive, 360° guide about crafting effective product, tech and company docs.
Personal Finance for Engineers — a practical, no non-sense guide to handle your finances.
How to Help Underperformers — on systemic performance, the accountability dial, feedback, and the underperformance checklist.
How to Use Engineering Metrics — we analyzed the various types of metrics and how to design a minimum viable process to use them for good.
How I Read Books — a revised process that completely changed my writing habit.
How to Name Things — finally addressing the hardest problem in software.
And that’s it for today! See you in 2025! ✨
Luca & Nicola