The Software Engineer Weekly

365 Days Ago I Left Google: 3 Lessons I've Learned in Self-Employment

One year ago today, I walked away from my Software Engineering role at Google. At the time, it felt like the riskiest move of my life. Now, looking back…

May 1 • Kevin Naughton Jr.

17

1

April 2026

Leverage is Everything

Most people blindly subscribe to a linear relationship between input and output. They believe that if they work 40 hours a week, they will achieve 40…

Apr 24 • Kevin Naughton Jr.

25

1

2

A Deep Dive into My Remote Development Setup

Last week, I talked about the philosophy of “Cattle, Not Pets”, the idea that your laptop should be disposable, not a precious asset. But why actually…

Apr 19 • Kevin Naughton Jr.

16

2

I Trapped Myself in Arch Linux for 365 Days. Here's Why I’m Never Leaving.

Over a year ago, I bought an old Thinkpad with the sole intention of messing around. I wanted to upgrade the hardware, tinker with the internals, and…

Apr 12 • Kevin Naughton Jr.

23

1

2

The Seniority Trap: Why You Might Have 1 Year of Experience, 10 Times

We’ve all seen the “Senior Software Engineer” LinkedIn profiles with 10+ years of experience. But in the world of engineering, time is a deceptive…

Apr 5 • Kevin Naughton Jr.

29

3

2

March 2026

3 Things I'm Unlearning from Big Tech

For nearly a decade, my identity was defined by a single title: Software Engineer. It’s an identity I picked up early, starting in a Computer Science…

Mar 29 • Kevin Naughton Jr.

22

How to Build a $1k MRR SaaS Without Getting Lucky

This week, Ferryman officially crossed the $1,000 Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) milestone. It took 110 days of showing up every single day. No days…

Mar 20 • Kevin Naughton Jr.

17

Be Selective About Opinions

As you get older, you have to become aggressively selective about whose advice you let into your head. Early in our lives, we’re all standing on the…

Mar 15 • Kevin Naughton Jr.

15

2

1

3 Hard Truths I Learned From Being Laid Off

Nearly eight years ago, on March 20th, I woke up, walked to a coffee shop near Washington Square Park with Carly, and prepared for another Tuesday as a…

Mar 6 • Kevin Naughton Jr.

17

2

Stability is a Trap

Most of us enter the industry with a simple plan: go to a Big Tech company, build a financial foundation, gain some “prestige,” and then leave to build…

Mar 1 • Kevin Naughton Jr.

18

February 2026

Your Hours Worked Don’t Matter

When you first go self-employed, there is a massive internal pressure to fill every hour with “work.” When you don’t have a 9-to-5 schedule, being busy…

Feb 22 • Kevin Naughton Jr.

23

1

How I Use AI to Code

When I first started using AI to code, I did it sheepishly. I treated it like a gimmick or a slightly better version of Stack Overflow. But over the…

Feb 15 • Kevin Naughton Jr.

24

3

1