61 posts by author

Zain Rizvi

Zain Rizvi

I'm a Software Engineer who's spent over a decade building the infrastructure used by millions of devs around the world. In the past I helped build Stripe, GCP & Azure. Nowadays I build PyTorch

Want to make a feature change to PyTorch?

With such a large number of commits coming in, PyTorch needs a process for managing it all to keep the codebase maintainable. For smaller changes, like a five line bug fix, this takes the form of a regular PR review. For larger changes, we prefer a Request for Comments

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PARA vs Zettelkasten: The false binary

I started practicing PARA and Zettelkasten two years ago [https://www.zainrizvi.io/blog/remembering-what-you-read-zettelkasten-vs-para/].  Here's what I've realized after twenty four months of practice: Change the system, not yourself There's a common mistake

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Why Software Engineers like Woodworking

The smell of fresh pine sawdust filled the air, with more floating up as I sanded the last rough corner of the stool. My toddler was happily sanding her own block off to the side. Woodworking was a new hobby

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Newsletter #26 - 2020 in Review

There goes 2020. This was the year I started writing seriously. It started off as a way to remember what I read [https://www.zainrizvi.io/#why-i-write], with this newsletter being an effective forcing function [https://www.zainrizvi.io/newsletter/

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Your confusion is the litmus test

I was fumbling in the dark. Groping blindly. It seemed so much simpler a month ago. "Hey, could you integrate this tool into our service?" my manager had asked. "Sure," I'd replied. "How

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#20 I was Bored at Google

It felt wrong. I was one year into working at Google, one of the best companies in the world. People die to get a job here. But...something was off. I was bored. Yes, the amenities were great. The food

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