Everyone recommends ByteByteGo and The Pragmatic Engineer.
Don't get me wrong, they're great... but the best engineering writing of the last two years is coming from newer publications nobody's put on a list yet. Here's what survived my filter.
I have a rule: if I haven't opened a newsletter in three weeks, I unsubscribe. No guilt, no "maybe later" folder. It's the only way to keep email useful when every engineering team, indie hacker, and AI startup on the planet is running a Substack.
That rule has consequences. Over the past couple of years it has killed off almost every famous-name newsletter in my inbox — not because they got worse, but because they got comfortable.
Meanwhile, a new generation of engineering publications launched around 2023–2024 started earning their slot every single week. They're smaller, sharper, and written by people still close to the work.
