This is a long article and the first bits comes off fairly condescending so I stopped reading…but one thing caught my eye:

“If you are a programmer, try to find an answer by reading the source code”

This is basically a superpower at any large tech co if only because few people do it, even though we’re literally all capable of it. When I inherit or start interfacing with a new service, the first thing I do is checkout the code and peruse through it. Even just 30-45 minutes, for an experienced engineer, is enough to get a feel for the layout of things. Then when you have a question about “How does X service handle Y scenario” you can just go read the code and know the answer exactly.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had the answer to a question and get something like “dang rco8786 how do you know so much about how everything works” and invariably my answer is just “I read the code”.

Maybe it's because I'm a less experienced programmer, but I find I have a lot of trouble understanding source code if I'm not trying to find or change something specific. I can't read it like a book, I have to experiment with it.

The entire set is good and I occasionally go back and revisit them.