Ever opened a repo, spotted an ancient dependency version, and felt your motivation quietly exit the building? That was me, staring at our client still running on TanStack Query v3.

Here’s the (mostly human) story of how I dragged it to v5 and what it taught me about keeping a codebase clean.

Five years ago, we invested in Domain-Driven Design. Conferences, workshops, consultants. The works.

The goal was simple: help humans navigate complexity. Make domain experts and developers speak the same language.

We had no idea those same boundaries would matter for something else entirely.

Three-plus years of continuous hiring evolution at TalentLMS, from traditional assignments to live coding experiments, back to take-homes, and through AI disruption. A candid look at our journey of constant experimentation and what we learned about finding the right engineering talent through changing times.

As AI tools revolutionize software testing, QA professionals fear losing the curiosity and critical thinking that define their craft.

But rather than diminishing these essential traits, AI actually amplifies them by shifting the QA role from test execution to quality architecture.

This exploration examines how AI serves as a high-performing partner that handles repetitive tasks, creating space for deeper analysis of user experience, business context, and meaningful test coverage—ultimately strengthening rather than weakening the human elements that make QA invaluable.

APIs need to stay stable even as the systems behind them keep changing. Each version becomes a contract that cannot move, while data models and requirements evolve around it.

Keeping everything working without slowing development is harder than it seems, and common approaches often break down once incremental changes start to accumulate.

It began as a small experiment to bring engineers back into contact with each other. Junior developers paired with mentors from different teams, learning how the company really worked instead of just their own corner of it.

No formal training, just regular conversations that built trust, context, and confidence. Over time, those early pairs shaped a quiet tradition.

Mentees became mentors. The bridges stayed.