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Dr. Derek Austin 🥳

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Career Programming: How You Can Become a Successful 6-Figure Programmer in 6 Months

Career Programming: How You Can Become a Successful 6-Figure Programmer in 6 Months

Career Programming offers a simple 6-month plan that will help you land a 6-figure programming job.

2023

Dr. Derek Austin

Dr. Derek Austin

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Career Programming

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Dr. Derek Austin 🥳

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Jul 30, 2025

After 20 Years of Coding, I’m Convinced State Machines Are the Future of Frontend

Forget Redux and Context. Here’s a better way to build predictable, bug-free applications.

After 20 Years of Coding, I’m Convinced State Machines Are the Future of Frontend

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According to Context

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Dr. Derek Austin 🥳

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Dec 6, 2025

How I Scrubbed 100% of the AI Slop From My Game & Cut Code by 45%

Just 3 weeks ago, I had 191,000 tokens in my upcoming tactical survival roguelite game’s codebase; today, I have 104,000 tokens: a…

How I Scrubbed 100% of the AI Slop From My Game & Cut Code by 45%

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According to Context

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Dr. Derek Austin 🥳

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Oct 16, 2025

My 5-Step Forge for Better LLM Coding for SWEs

I’ve been finding much improved results using LLMs to code by disagreeing with the core tenet of “vibe coding” — that you can “one-shot”…

My 5-Step Forge for Better LLM Coding for SWEs

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React in the Real World

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Dr. Derek Austin 🥳

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5d ago

Why Pagination Is Bad UX (& Why I Prefer Optimistic Loading)

Pagination seemed to make a lot of sense for our LAMP-style, server-rendered apps in the ’90s, but modern web frameworks mean there’s a…

Why Pagination Is Bad UX (& Why I Prefer Optimistic Loading)

In

Go Go Godot Game Dev

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Dr. Derek Austin 🥳

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Jun 19

How To Make Godot Sleep or Wait With a Timeout (and Why await process_frame Is a Trap)

Godot has custom timeouts that are the correct way to make your game sleep or wait. Here’s why and how.

Wait Time Consistency in Godot

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Career Programming

by

Dr. Derek Austin 🥳

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Jun 11

Why I Prefer Testing After I Code, Not Testing Before (TDD)

Automated test suites are awesome for preventing regressions and documenting previous bugfixes, but I don’t use test-driven development…

Why I Prefer Testing After I Code, Not Testing Before (TDD)

In

Career Programming

by

Dr. Derek Austin 🥳

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Jun 9

Why Recruiters See Full-Stack as Different From Front-End and Back-End SWE

You’ll almost certainly want 3 versions of your resume if you’re a full-stack dev open to front-end and back-end positions, because the…

Why Recruiters See Full-Stack as Different From Front-End and Back-End SWE

In

Career Programming

by

Dr. Derek Austin 🥳

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Jun 4

Why Typing Speed Matters More Than Coding Skills for Beginner Devs

If you aren’t a great typist, then you’re going to burn way too much brain glucose while typing! Here’s what to do about it.

Why Typing Speed Matters More Than Coding Skills for Beginner Devs

In

According to Context

by

Dr. Derek Austin 🥳

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Jun 2

How I Dictate to LLMs for 3× Faster SWE Speed Versus Typing

No, you still can’t dictate code, but free, open-source, local, private, “AI-powered” automatic speech recognition (ASR) tools allow me to…

How I Dictate to LLMs for 3× Faster SWE Speed Versus Typing

In

Career Programming

by

Dr. Derek Austin 🥳

·

May 28

Why SWEs Burn Out and How To Avoid It (Based on Personal Experience)

Yes, I’ve burnt out. No, I don’t recommend it. Here’s how I stopped burning out.

Why SWEs Burn Out and How To Avoid It (Based on Personal Experience)

Dr. Derek Austin 🥳

Dr. Derek Austin 🥳

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AI-Native Senior Full-Stack SWE · UI/UX Engineer · TypeScript specialist · 20+ years of SWE · BS & MS age 19 · Doctor of Physical Therapy · DoctorDerek.com

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