Joshua Paling

Are LLMs Safe? Busting the Myth of "LLM Superstition" Sep 3 2025

One of the best ways to hamstring your organisation in this AI era is to fall victim to what I call “LLM superstition.” It’s the belief that large language models are uniquely unsafe; that info you put into ChatGPT might be regurgitated in a recognisable...

What I look for in a resume Aug 8 2025

I’ve been experimenting with having GPT help me grade resumes. This is what I’m looking for.

Two modes of hiring

Before we go further…

Sometimes, there’s one role to fill. In that case, the resume must match the role closely. Other times, there...

Talk on database indexing Jun 13 2023

Great talk on database indexing

Key points:

In a multi-column index, order matters
All but the final column of an index can only work on exact match
Range indexes only work on the final column of an index

Hiring Offshore May 26 2021

Though most of our engineers are based in Australia, at work we’ve now got teams in Ukraine, Sri Lanka, India, and Brazil. Here’s some tips.

Don’t lower your bar

If you wouldn’t hire them for full price at on-shore rates, don’t hire them off-shore...

Every New Hire Must Raise the Bar May 26 2021

Just a few personal lessons here, recording for my own reference.

Set an extremely high bar on hiring

Hiring is the most important thing you do as a manager. And every new hire must raise the bar. They must make the whole team better. This is an...

Breaking Prod Jul 27 2018

When broken production apps break, stakeholders immediately ask: “What can we do to ensure this never happens again?”

The relationship between development speed and bugs looks something like this:

Rushed pace & poor testing means many bugs. Slow...

Data imports done right Dec 22 2016

I’ve been bitten more than once by data imports consuming an unreasonable amount of time in software projects. Here are some lessons.

Know what to expect

The client (or whoever is sourcing the data) will give you poor quality data from disparate...

How to make fixed price work Oct 14 2016

Customers want fixed price. Here’s how to make it a fair deal for yourself. I recently read this tweet-storm, on why you should never take fixed price contracts.

It says:

Unless you’ve done the job 20 times, and can estimate how long it will take...

Questions for potential employers Aug 8 2016

Unexpected circumstances have meant I’ve done two job hunts in recent months. I usually scribble down a handful of questions to ask or consider prior to each interview. Here they are so I can remember and refine them over time.

What does the...

What makes a good talk? Mar 22 2016

After Ruby Conf AU, I came away noticing a few common traits of good talks:

Excellent delivery

On stage, you’re not just speaking, you’re performing. Turn the enthusiasm up a few notches from what you’d use in a face-to-face conversation. Don’t just...

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