About The Software Lounge

The Software Lounge is a blog about software development and tech leadership. The posts tend to be a bit all over the place, with topics ranging from TypeScript deep dives to career planning advice. Instead of focusing intensely on one topic, I let the blog grow naturally with my own interests and experience. Over time, I’m sure that a certain trend will develop that helps me better define what this little corner of the Internet is really about.

Who Am I Anyway?

I’m Filip Danic and I work as a Software Development Manager at Amazon, based out of Amsterdam. I work in the Finance Technology org, leading a team that owns an internal big data reporting platform. We ingest, process, transform, and neatly organize a lot of data to boost the productivity of our accountants, analysts, and tax experts. I joined Amazon as an engineer and contributed to and lead the building of these systems. Afterwards, I transitioned to a manager position and started officially leading this group.

Previously, I lived and worked in Belgrade, Serbia. I was a software developer at SpiceFactory, a local product development agency. It was a wonderful, high-impact role that allowed me to build product in industries such as healthcare, event planning, and physical security.

Why This Blog?

I launched this blog in April 2023 using Ghost with a desire to build a non-nonsense repository of evergreen ideas and deep-dives that will help other software engineers grow. I think there’s a lot of mediocre and click-bait content out there and we see it spreading extremely fast. My goal is to build something different while also finding clarity in my own thinking and reflecting on my approaches to building software.

Clarifying your own thoughts is one of those pivotal benefits of writing down your ideas. Since I started this blog, I found myself discarding a lot of potential blog posts because I realized that I was not as informed about the topic as I thought. I’ve grown a lot as a software developer and leader by following up on those gaps and expanding my knowledge. So, I like to think that this blog will help others grow as well.

To keep up with updates, follow along with @_softwarelounge on Twitter.

If you’re looking for something to read right now, then here’s my top 3 favorite articles on this blog:

Brag Documents and Work Logs: Be Your Own Best Advocate

The best advocate for your next performance review, pay raise discussion, or promotion is yourself. Not even the best manager in the world will always have full insight into all of the things you’ve done and the full extent of the impact you created.

The Software LoungeFilip Danic

The Most Common Unit Testing Mistakes

A look at some (potentially) controversial ideas on how to get more value out of your tests. (And how to avoid wasting time and money on useless unit tests.)

The Software LoungeFilip Danic

The Beginner’s Guide to Property-based Testing

Property-based testing is a type of software testing that allows us to test systems by defining properties (or invariants) that should hold true for a range of inputs. I imagine that reading the word “invariant” makes you shiver. Are we back in class? Will there be math in this article? Fear not!

The Software LoungeFilip Danic

If you’re in Amsterdam, feel free to reach out and connect via LinkedIn as well.