Engineering Problem-Solving Techniques

Competitive Programming is fun, but why is learning math (for us engineers) so bookish, theoretical, and boring? Today, I'm kicking off SWE Math Weekly – a fun, hands-on weekly challenge that will require you to solve a question through code and in the process understand a set of math concepts - from linear algebra, statistics, and calculus. Here's how it will work, 1. on friday, I'll post an easy or mid-level problem (cp-style) 2. solve it over the weekend, dig deeper into the math concepts 3. on wednesday, I'll share the code, some notes, and maybe even a video explaining the problem. The problems won't just be random theoretical math exercises. I'll focus on topics that are actually and commonly used in AI, ML, and other advanced domains. The first challenge is live now Challenge 1 - arpitbhayani.me/math/1 SWE Math Weekly - arpitbhayani.me/math Time to make math interesting (for us) and in the process become better engineers :) If this sounds exciting, hop along, and solve the problems. It's going to be fun, I promise! #AsliEngineering #SWEMathWeekly

Rick Rubin went on stage in Helsinki the day after my talk. Someone asked how he resolves creative differences with artists. His answer was simple: change the conversation from "I disagree" to "let's build it." Then he shared a story: An artist played him a song. The transition didn't work. Rubin told him so. The artist said, "We'll just cut that part in half." Rubin thought to himself: What a dumb idea. But he didn't say that. He said, "Let's try it." The artist played it. It worked. Rubin is a legend. He's produced everyone from Johnny Cash to Jay-Z. Instead, he bit his tongue and let the artist prove him wrong. The principle: when you make an idea tangible, it stops being the person's idea. It becomes something you can both look at objectively and improve together. Once you build it, the truth is obvious. Here's what this looks like in practice: Your designer wants to change the entire homepage layout. You think it's too risky. Instead of three meetings debating it, you say: "Let's build a prototype and test it with 50 users this week." Your sales team wants to restructure the pricing page. Instead of blocking it because you're worried about conversions, you say: "Let's run it as an A/B test on 20% of traffic for two weeks." Your engineer wants to rebuild a core feature from scratch. You think it's overengineered. But instead of killing it in the planning phase, you say: "Spike it out in three days and show me if the performance gain is real." You're not saying yes to everything. You're saying, "Let's find out." Rubin also said something that stuck with me: "If there's disagreement, I always side with the artist's vision. Because to them, it's their career. To me, it's just one piece of my portfolio." Most leaders think backing down makes them look weak. Rubin knows that siding with the person who has the most at stake makes better work happen. Your job isn't to be right. It's to create the conditions where the best idea wins. Stop debating. Start building. P.S. This insight is from this week's newsletter where I break down why Yamaha dominates while Steinway got sold to private equity: https://lnkd.in/efSqP_9K P.P.S. Access additional research links, the podcast, and the full archive in the first comment 👇 Thank you to Nordic Business Forum!

Everyone should be using Claude Code more PMs, marketers, designers, founders, parents. Everyone. The trick is to forget that it’s called Claude Code and instead think of it as Claude Local or Claude Agent. It’s essentially a super-intelligent AI running locally, able to do stuff directly on your computer—from organizing your files and folders to brainstorming domain names, summarizing customer calls, to enhancing image quality, creating Linear tickets, and so much more. Here are 50 creative ways non-technical people are using Claude Code in their work and life, to inspire your own thinking. This list includes my own favorite use cases, and the best examples y’all shared with me: 1. Finding high-quality leads, from Jeff Lindquist “I literally just typed: look at what I’m building and identify the top 5 companies in my area that would be good for a pilot for this. Then I go to LinkedIn and message them. If it’s not clear, I do this in the source directory of the code of my app so the first thing it does is figure out what it is that I’m building.” 2. Figuring out why your computer is running slow, from Anthony Roux “I sometimes use Claude Code for system diagnostics when my Mac slows down. I use it to check load averages, memory pressure, disk space, stuck processes, and swap activity, then it dives deeper to find what’s actually causing issues. It can calculate cache sizes, check Docker usage, find Time Machine snapshots eating space, etc." 3. Noticing when you’re avoiding conflict, from Dan Shipper “I download all of my meeting recordings, put them in a folder, and ask Claude Code to tell me all of the times I’ve subtly avoided conflict.” 4. Clearing space on my computer Prompt: “How can I clear some storage on my computer?” I then discuss my options. 5. Brainstorming domain names, from Ben Aiad “Just describe your project, and it’ll suggest creative options across multiple TLDs (.com, .io, .dev, etc.) while verifying what’s actually available to register.” 6. Improving the image quality of screenshots Prompt: “Improve the image quality of [filename]”. I used this many times for the screenshots in this post. 7. Downloading YouTube videos Prompt: “Download this YouTube video: [URL]”. Then I ignored all the warnings 🤫 8. Downloading all of the images embedded inside a Google Doc Prompt: “Download all of the images in high-res from this Google Doc: [URL]”. This paired well with item #2. 9. Cleaning up messy invoice files, from Martin Merschroth “I use Claude Code to sort my invoices for taxes. It reads each file in a messy folder, renames it to ‘YYYY-MM-DD Vendor - Invoice - ProductOrService.pdf’, and moves it into the right folder.” Here's the whole collection (bookmark it for later), including a quick 3-step guide to installing Claude Code so you can try this stuff at home: https://lnkd.in/g_wqdx36

"Maximizing the value of your Claude Code sessions" Agentic coding tools like Claude Code are incredible, but are you getting the most value out of your tokens? Anthropic's Lydia Hallie just dropped a fantastic guide on how to run efficient Claude Code sessions: https://lnkd.in/gujXdtBJ It turns out that fixing the exact same bug can cost completely different amounts depending on your session hygiene. Head's up: I do anticipate Claude will do more of this for you at some point, but until then: Here is how to optimize your workflow and stop wasting context: 1. 🧹 Run /clear between tasks: Don't drag old context into a new problem. You're paying to re-read it on every single turn! 2. ⚙️ Set your /model and /effort upfront: Changing these mid-conversation busts your prompt cache, forcing a full-price prefill of your entire session. 3. 📎 @-mention files directly: Instead of typing out file paths, tagging them attaches the file to your message immediately, saving Claude a roundtrip "Read" call. 4. 🤫 Keep commands quiet: Add quiet flags to noisy terminal commands (like test runners) or run them in a subagent. Massive log outputs get permanently added to your conversation history. 5. 🔍 Audit your /context: Run this in a fresh session to see exactly what's loaded from your CLAUDE.md or MCP tools, and trim the excess. 6. 📦 /compact before you step away: Prompt caches expire (after an hour on a subscription, or just 5 minutes on an API key). Summarizing your conversation is significantly cheaper while the cache is still warm. The main takeaway? Being efficient with tokens doesn't mean using fewer of them - it means ensuring every token goes toward the problem you're actually trying to solve #ai #programming #softwareengineering

Linear thinking is a comfort. Systems thinking is a discipline. I pulled Albert Rutherford’s The Systems Thinker off the shelf for yet another read this week. I didn't return to it to learn something new. I returned to it to clean my lens. Most people view the world as a series of snapshots, isolated events with simple causes. A happens, so B happens. But whether I’m architecting a network, turning a complex piece of timber, or sparring in the dojo, the reality is never linear. It is circular. It is a web of feedback loops, delays, and unintended consequences. Rutherford reminds us that we cannot just fix the "event." We must understand the structure that caused it. My forged takeaways from the reread: • Structure Dictates Behavior: If you want to change the outcome, don’t just push harder. Change the system. A bad system will beat a good person every time. • The Delay Factor: In complex systems, the effect of an action is rarely immediate. Patience is not just a virtue; it is a necessity of engineering. • Today’s Problems Come from Yesterday’s Solutions: The quick fix you implemented last year is often the root cause of the crisis you face today. If you find yourself solving the same problems over and over again, you aren't dealing with a problem. You are trapped in a loop. Stop looking at the events. Start looking at the system. #SystemsThinking #Engineering #Leadership #ProblemSolving #AlbertRutherford #ContinuousLearning #GrandmasterMindset

Is it a TV or is it a bike? Dutch bicycle company VanMoof was facing a serious crisis, with 25% of their products arriving damaged at customers' doorsteps. They attempted every standard fix, including reinforcing their packaging and switching shipping partners, but nothing seemed to lower the breakage rate. The breakthrough came from a simple design tweak rather than an engineering overhaul. The company started printing images of flat-screen TVs on the sides of their bike boxes. Couriers, assuming the packages contained fragile electronics, immediately began handling the cargo with extreme caution. This psychological trick worked wonders, reducing shipping damages by 80%. It serves as a powerful lesson that complex operational challenges do not always require expensive solutions; sometimes, you simply need to change the perspective.

🔻 When Deep Foundations Become the Silent Heroes A few days ago in Bangkok, a dramatic ground collapse occurred due to massive leakage from underground sewer pipelines. The soil underneath an active building literally washed away within hours. Standing in front of this scene, one question comes to mind: Why didn’t the whole building collapse? The answer lies beneath the surface — in the deep concrete piles. Even though some piles cracked under unexpected tensile stresses and soil loss, the majority continued to carry the structure’s weight through end bearing and skin friction. They acted as anchors, resisting settlement and holding the building above ground despite the voids opening below. Now imagine this same building resting on shallow foundations only: the entire superstructure would have sunk into the collapse zone almost instantly. This case is a powerful reminder for us as geotechnical engineers: In flood-prone or water-sensitive areas, piles are not optional — they are essential. Proper pile design must account for tension resistance, load redistribution, and long-term soil–structure interaction. What looks like “overdesign” on paper often becomes the only safeguard against catastrophic failures. At the end of the day, piles don’t just carry loads — they carry safety, resilience, and trust in our built environment. #GeotechnicalEngineering #DeepFoundations #Piles #CivilEngineering #SoilMechanics #FoundationDesign #StructuralSafety #InfrastructureResilience #EngineeringLessons #FloodResilience

Sometimes, best solutions are the simplest ones. When Colgate hit a plateau in growth, they faced a crucial challenge: How do we get people to use more toothpaste without changing the product itself? Most companies might have gone big — a flashy marketing blitz, a brand-new product range, or an expensive rebrand. Colgate, however, chose a far simpler and smarter route. They widened the opening of their toothpaste tube. No new formula. No fancy flavors. No dramatic packaging overhaul. Just a slightly bigger hole. This tiny tweak meant people unknowingly squeezed out more toothpaste each time. Tubes emptied faster, and sales went up — all without consumers even realizing why. It was a masterstroke in behavioral psychology: a change so subtle it flew under the radar, yet powerful enough to shift buying habits. A reminder that sometimes, the most effective growth moves are the quiet ones.

5-WHY ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS (RCA) Problem Statement: A batch of parts was rejected due to an oversized hole diameter. 5-Why Analysis: 1.Why was the batch rejected?→ Because the hole diameter was larger than the specified tolerance. 2.Why was the hole diameter too large?→ Because the drilling machine was not properly adjusted. 3.Why was the machine not properly adjusted?→ Because the operator used an outdated setup sheet. 4.Why did the operator use an outdated setup sheet?→ Because the latest revision was not available at the machine. 5.Why was the latest revision not available at the machine?→ Because there is no system in place to ensure controlled document distribution. Root Cause: No document control system for distributing updated setup sheets. Corrective Actions: •Introduce a document control procedure to issue and display the latest revision only. •Restrict access to outdated setup sheets by removing old versions from machines. •Train machine operators and line leaders on verifying document revision before setup. Preventive Measures: •Digitize all setup sheets with access through a centralized network folder or MES (Manufacturing Execution System). •Implement revision control logs with sign-off for updates and acknowledgments by operators. •Conduct regular audits on setup documents at workstations. •Establish standard work that includes a revision check step before every job setup. •Integrate barcode or QR code scanning to verify correct document versions at machines.

Today, I witnessed my team lead interviewing a Full-Stack Web Developer with 2 years of experience, and I observed some interesting insights. The interview started with basic technical questions, which the candidate answered well. Then, my team lead gave him a coding task: 👉 "Write a function that removes duplicate values from a nested array while preserving its structure (PHP)." The candidate struggled and couldn’t solve it. So, my lead gave him another task: 👉 "Write a function that groups an array of associative arrays based on a specific key." Again, he couldn’t solve it. At this point, he admitted: "I don’t always have syntax and logic rules memorized, as I usually rely on resources like Stack Overflow and ChatGPT. Could you assign me a real-world task instead?" Here,I decided to step in. Since I was working on WooCommerce project, I gave him this challenge: 💡 "Implement a functionality where a logged-in user gets a 15% discount if they place two orders in a single day." We allowed him to use Google, ChatGPT, or any other resources. To our surprise, within 1.5 hour, he understood WooCommerce functionality, analyzed the existing code, and successfully implemented the feature. ✨ We ended up hiring him! ✨ Key Takeaway Many traditional interview techniques overemphasize logical puzzles and syntax-heavy questions, yet modern developers approach problem-solving differently. Rather than memorizing solutions, they adapt, learn, and implement on the spot using the tools and resources available to them. 💡 Instead of testing how well candidates remember syntax, we should focus on how effectively they apply problem-solving skills to practical challenges. What’s your take on this? Let’s discuss in the comments! 👇 #HiringTechTalent #TechCommunity #WhatDoYouThink