Best of Technically, 2022

The top posts of the year, for your browsing pleasure

2022 was a wacky year, but a busy one for Technically. We did:

• 21,000 new free subscribers (thank you!)

• 800 new paid subscribers (thank you more!)

• 1M+ post views

• 24 new posts and 2 new content formats

When I started the newsletter 3 years ago in the airport in Tokyo on a whim, I did not ever imagine it getting here. So thank you to all of you for supporting my work: subscribing, reading, leaving comments, getting outraged, and all of the other little ways that this community has participated in 2022.

I’ve got so much more exciting stuff planned for next year, and I’m going to give you a sneak peek. But first: let’s look at the top posts that you’ve read this year.

2022 Technically Post Roundup

Let’s start with some superlatives:

• Most popular: What are Microservices? (45K views)

• Most obscure: What do internal engineering tools look like?

• Most in depth: The Details: Production Databases

• Most commented on: How do I get more technical?

This year, Technically broke down 5 new products and what they do:

• Gitlab

• New Relic

• Elastic

• Postman

• Snowflake

We went into serious depth on a few topics:

• Production databases

• Frontends and backends

• Product analytics

• How to get more technical

And did basic explainers on 9 new pieces of tech:

• Reverse ETL

• GraphQL

• Data Lakes

• Caches

• Internal engineering tools

• A/B testing

• Tokenization

• Microservices

• ChatGPT

In 2022, we started doing a Technically mailbag sort of thing called Ask Technically, where you can ask questions and get em answered. Subscribers asked tons of interesting questions, like:

• What does it mean when software “integrates” with other software?

• What’s a native application vs. a web application?

• What’s object oriented programming?

• What makes programming languages different from one another?

• What’s the DOM and how does it work?

If you have any questions of your own, please send them my way by responding to this email!

2023 sneak peek

We’ve got some exciting stuff coming your way in 2023. Here’s a sneak peek:

1. Learning Tracks

With 60+ Technically posts over the years, it’s daunting to figure out where to start. We’re working on structured learning tracks that organize what you need to know to work with specific teams or cover specific parts of the stack. If you look hard enough, you might be able to find the first two in beta on the web 👀

2. Practitioner specific content

At the end of last year, we did a roundup of the top technical things that PMs should know — and it did great! With so many marketers, PMs, designers, operations leads, recruiters, sales teams, and other experts like you who subscribe to Technically, we’re working on new types of content that help you get more technical and better at your job.

3. News and roundups

Subscribers have been asking for more content breaking down what’s going on in the news as it relates to software and software engineering. We’ll be doing more Technically Dispatches that analyze important happenings in technical news (e.g. the LinkedIn A/B testing fiasco).

Ideas for new formats or types of posts? Just reply and let me know.

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Thanks again for all of your support. See you in 2023 😉

– Justin