Scalable Path Blog Articles

What separates decent CTOs from great ones? It’s not coding chops or architecture diagrams. It’s people—and the ability to lead them. In a recent episode of Commit & Push, host Damien Filiatrault talks with Zach Goldberg, CTO of Gruntwork and author of The Startup CTO’s Handbook, about what really matters when you’re scaling an engineering team. From avoiding overcomplicated tech to investing in developer experience,

Many programmers, including myself, have hobbies or side projects that are tech related. Which at least somewhat explains why I decided to spend my recent vacation learning some new tech (but don’t worry, I also spent time doing nothing). After digging into a number of trends, I stopped on a web framework that piqued my interest: Remix. It’s a Next.js alternative that’s curious

AI agents are starting to reshape how businesses operate, from automating support workflows to enabling real-time data synthesis. As adoption grows, however, so do the challenges. Today’s AI agents lack memory, are prone to errors, and often get stuck without human intervention. That’s where LangGraph comes in. LangGraph is a framework for building stateful, multi-agent applications powered by large language models. It helps developers move […]

Most AI projects fail. That’s not clickbait—it’s a well-documented reality, with failure rates as high as 90% according to research from Carnegie Mellon, Gartner, and the Wall Street Journal. Dan Saffer, Associate Director of Outreach at Carnegie Mellon’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute, says the reasons are rarely technical. They’re human: bad data, poor UX, vague goals, and inflated expectations. In this post, we unpack the

AI is evolving fast, but hiring the right talent to build with it? That’s a different story. Thanks to the rise of foundation models and the explosion of accessible tools—from open-source libraries to plug-and-play APIs—companies of all sizes are now experimenting with AI. However, turning those prototypes into real, scalable products takes a very different kind of team. The demand for machine learning engineers is […]

Svelte has ranked as the most-loved front-end framework for several years. It’s winning developers over with its simplicity, efficiency, and most importantly, an incredibly satisfying developer experience.  So when the Svelte core team decided to rebuild the framework from the ground up – effectively reworking the very things that makes it so loved – it raised some eyebrows. Many developers in the community (myself included) […]

AI, like much of tech, evolves at an exponential pace. Just a few years ago, we saw an explosion of LLM-powered tools that streamlined development tasks.  Innovations like ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, and Tabnine serve as both code auto-completion tools and AI pair programming assistants.   These innovations seemed to mark a turning point. It’s clear now that AI tools and technology are here to stay, […]

Artificial Intelligence has been shaking up nearly every industry, and software development is no exception. Companies are constantly looking to optimize their processes and reduce costs, and this is where the promise of integrating AI into the daily routine of software developers shines the brightest. These tools not only boost developer productivity but also transform what we know about software development and its stages. Imagine […

Read how we worked with Odaptos to launch an MVP that helped them raise a $1.2M seed round in just 4 months.

Getting into React Native app development? Then buckle up, because crafting a slick, consistent UI can feel like a wild ride!  One minute, you are tweaking styles, and the next, you’re drowning in component props. But hey, don’t panic. The React Native ecosystem has your back with libraries like React Native Paper, which packs a full set of Material Design awesomeness to keep your

Prolucent, a trailblazer in leveraging technology and data to streamline hiring processes, sought to diminish hiring costs and time-to-hire rates significantly. Our collaboration focused on building an internal Vendor Management System (VMS) and assembling a robust development team to bolster Prolucent’s tech framework and operational efficiency. Prolucent is a technology company that helps healthcare organizations reduce labor costs and time-to-hire. Based in Dallas, Texas, Prolucent […]

If you work in tech, you’ve likely heard of dark patterns. If you haven’t, you have almost certainly encountered them; maybe you’ve even unknowingly designed one. A dark pattern is an intentional design choice that manipulates or misleads users. Businesses use them to boost key business metrics, like revenue or user growth. And they almost always come at the expense of the user.

Hello everyone! I’m back to talk about one of the most-discussed subjects in AI innovation recently: AI agentic workflows.

React 19 was a major milestone in the framework’s evolution. Two of the biggest achievements were the release of Server Components and Server Actions, the server-side aspect of React 19’s full-stack vision. It’s no exaggeration to say these features are a colossal game changer in how React developers will create full-stack code. If you haven’t yet familiarized yourself with the client-side changes introduced in React […]

The JavaScript ecosystem is dynamic and ever-evolving. JavaScript Developers nowadays must make informed decisions not only of the libraries but of JavaScript runtime as well.

Technical debt is a term many development teams know well. While often seen as a negative, it can also reflect your team’s ability to deliver quickly and innovate—prioritizing progress over perfection. In some cases, it’s a necessary trade-off for hitting critical deadlines or staying competitive in fast-moving markets. However, when left unmanaged, technical debt can slow progress, degrade software performance, and introduce security risks. The […

React 18 was a major milestone in the framework’s journey, primarily because of the introduction of an interruptible, cancelable, concurrent rendering engine. This feature improved UI rendering, improved the interactions with Server Side React (SSR), and paved the way for many new features to be built upon React’s shiny new innards.  React 19 fulfilled the promise set by React 18 by leveraging its interruptible

Learning to use AI tools like ChatGPT has become increasingly important for developers to stay relevant and competitive. It’s clear that developers who master these tools and embrace innovation will stand apart from developers who lag behind and who choose to ignore them. We’ve dug into ChatGPT and found the best use cases and technical prompts so you can start to pair programming with ChatGPT and […]

There’s no denying we’re currently in a tough economic climate. Inflation is currently soaring to the highest levels seen in decades, while high interest rates are leading many businesses to cut spending. Many companies are facing stagnant sales, declining revenue, and higher borrowing costs, leading them to look for ways to reduce costs and generate more revenue. For tech companies, product and engineering departments

In this article, I’ll walk you there my discoveries and revelations that unfolded during these weeks of coding with ChatGPT. First, we’ll dive deep into the various functions and capabilities I used, such as code analysis and suggestions, code refactoring, debugging assistance, documentation generation, and code reviewing. There, I’ll showcase real-life code examples from my TypeScript, GraphQL, NestJS, and MongoDB projects.

JavaScript has long been the universal programming language for building dynamic, interactive web applications. Today, JavaScript powers millions of websites, with estimates suggesting that nearly 99% (more than 49.5 million) use it as their client-side programming language. As web development demands have grown, TypeScript has emerged as a key tool. That’s because it enhances JavaScript with strong typing and advanced tooling to support the creation […]

Learn about the cost of hiring software developers from Latin America compared to other global markets.

Aside from being a top 25 US-based Unicorn, what do Instacart, Doordash, Airbnb, and SpaceX all have in common? They use Python. Far-reaching versatility has been a long-time factor in the language’s popularity, but what really what makes Python such a valuable development tool? Read more about Python and why it continues to trend upwards, taking place as the most popular programming language of the year.

Working remotely is on the rise not just because it’s more cost-effective, but because of its clear benefits to productivity and increased access to talent. The leap from in-house to a remote workforce can be unnerving for many, but embracing a few key ideas can smooth the transition.

Java has been kicking it for over 20 years in the world of web development, but what is its current popularity status amidst the rise of dynamic languages? Full-stack developer Nicolae tackles this question by explaining how Java is architecturally inclined toward scalability and isn’t going away anytime soon.

Should you choose Flutter or React Native for your next project? Here’s how these frameworks compare for cross-platform development.

Remote employee monitoring has become a popular practice in recent years. Here’s what employers looking to monitor performance should consider.

React and Vue are two of the most popular frameworks. Learn which one will fit best in your project.

This blog post was inspired by an episode of the Jess Get Hired podcast, where Damien Filiatrault, CEO and Founder of Scalable Path, shares his valuable insights and experiences in the remote talent industry. Since founding Scalable Path in 2010, the company has amassed a freelance network of over 30,000 software developers in 178 countries. Podcast Technology is constantly evolving. Because of the growth of […

I know what you’re thinking: “wow, yet another article on yet another JavaScript framework.” Well, if you’re thinking that, I’m here to say “not

Will learning to speak a new language make you a better developer? What if we told you it can reshape how your brain works, enhancing both your soft skills as well as your technical capabilities? Read about some of the benefits of language acquisition.

Langchain has rapidly emerged as a game-changer in the development of AI-powered applications. As developers increasingly leverage large language models (LLMs), Langchain simplifies what was once a fragmented and complex process. By offering an open-source orchestration framework, Langchain allows developers to easily integrate LLMs into their projects, bringing a new level of efficiency and flexibility to the table. But Langchain’s relevance goes beyond mere convenience. […]

The rise of low-code and no-code development platforms is making software creation accessible to a broader audience. These platforms are bridging the gap between the high demand for software solutions and the limited supply of skilled developers. In this article, we will explore what low-code and no-code development entail, their benefits, the types of platforms available, as well as best practices for using them effectively. […]

This blog post was inspired by an episode of the Software Engineering Daily podcast featuring Damien Filiatrault, Founder and CEO of Scalable Path. Listen to the episode. Developer productivity is a critical factor in determining the success of any software project. Whether you’re aiming to deliver features faster, reduce technical debt, or improve code quality, understanding how to optimize your team’s efficiency is essential.

Cloud computing has transformed the way we host applications by offering scalable, on-demand services. Serverless architecture, as part of this evolution, allows developers to run code without managing servers. In this guide, we’ll explore the benefits and use cases of serverless, and help you determine when it’s the right choice for your application. We’ll also dive into the history of cloud computing, options from major […]

The data preprocessing phase is the most challenging and time-consuming part of data science, but it’s also one of the most important parts. Learn best techniques to prepare and clean the data so you don’t compromise the ML model.

Learn 7 qualities that set the best programmers apart from the crowd and how to evaluate candidates for these skills.

Machine learning (ML) has evolved from an experimental novelty to a fundamental part of the software landscape. As ML adoption has grown, development and deployment processes have had to adapt—and continue to evolve—to meet the demands of this field. ML models are built at first for experimentation, and as such, typically lack robust infrastructure for large-scale testing and deployment. Instead, teams often rely on numerous […]

ChatGPT, the AI language model from OpenAI, is transforming the job search and interview process for software developers and hiring managers.

As artificial intelligence, or AI, increasingly becomes a part of our everyday lives, the need for understanding the systems behind this technology as well as their failings, becomes equally important. It’s simply not acceptable to write AI off as a foolproof black box that outputs sage advice. In reality, AI can be as flawed as its creators, leading to negative outcomes in the real world

Laravel is one of the most widely-used PHP frameworks today. A quick Google search will surface a plethora of tools that exist within this framework’s ecosystem, and it’s easy to understand why it’s become a go-to choice for various types of projects. Whether it’s being used to create an API, a command-line tool, or a full-stack app, Laravel enables developers to reliably build robust and […]

We live in a world overflowing with data. So much of our world exists in the digital space – social media interactions, sensor readings, financial transactions, scientific observations – and all of it generates data. it’s estimated that nearly half a million terabytes of data are created each day, and that number is growing exponentially. This flood of information presents both opportunities and challenges. Businesses […

Vue has been gaining attention among the developer community lately for its powerful features. But will it become the most popular front-end framework in 2023?

Whether you have an opportunity lined up or are merely considering a career change, you’ll need to know how to properly prepare for technical interviews. Not only are you competing against the test, but also the other applicants who are taking it, so it is essential to stand out and perform

Over the years, software teams have had to learn how to evolve with their changing industry, not only with emerging architectures, technologies, and frameworks but with newer approaches to development altogether, like Continuous Deployment. In this agile movement that we find ourselves in, the ultimate goal is to minimize the time between the moment we take on a task and the time we release it […

Since its release, ChatGPT has taken the world by storm. Seemingly out of nowhere, we had a computational system so effective that it could generate human language and dialogue good enough to pass expert evaluation tests like the bar or medical exams.  One of the reasons ChatGPT became so popular is the simplicity of the user experience. It allows users to access the power of […]

Hugging Face stands out as a transformative toolkit in the NLP ecosystem. In this article, we’ll dive into what sets Hugging Face apart, exploring its core features, the diverse tasks it supports, the vibrant community behind it, and a practical example showcasing its user-friendly interface.

Creating consistent and performant user interfaces across different devices and platforms has long been challenging in cross-platform app development.

Node.js has been a popular choice for both startups and well-known giants such as NetFlix, Medium, GoDaddy and LinkedIn. Here’s so many continue to choose this tool for their back-end.

Laravel is an open-source PHP web application framework that provides a structure and starting point for building both simple and complex web apps. Learn everything you need to know about the framework’s latest updates and upgrading your app to Laravel 9.

Many developers are adopting AI tools to enhance productivity and code quality. This shift brings forth challenges in accurately evaluating technical skills.   As interviewers looking to assess which developers are the best fit for a given position, we have an important choice to make:  Should we allow candidates to use AI during their live coding exercises?   We began by discussing the issue internally, and the […

Health for California has revolutionized the way individuals access and understand health coverage. Over a partnership spanning more than 13 years, we’ve been instrumental in their digital transformation, offering them critical development services that have helped them upgrade their online presence, service delivery, and customer experience. Health for California is the largest health insurance agency in the state. Since their inception in 2004, Health for […

Micro frontends first came to light in 2016 as front-end architecture similar to and loosely based on microservices. The architecture was developed in response to common issues with building a growing single-page application, like poor scalability, maintainability and developer experience. Since, they’ve continued to evolve, allowing teams to build robust, feature-rich applications with more flexibility, accessibility and speed. In this article, I’ll unpack the theory […]

A smooth onboarding program can improve your freelancer’s performance and job satisfaction. Learn more in our

Kotlin is hot right now, but is all the hype justified? We asked mobile expert Abdu Adilovic to see how it measured up against the ever-popular Java. Here are some of the issues he finds with Java and how Kotlin offers solutions to all of them.

Redux or Context API: which tool is better for React state management? In this article, we dig into how each tool manages data flow through React nested components.

We focus on processes to effectively and efficiently develop digital products. One of our processes is using Agile Development, which includes using Agile Story Points to assign a common definition to the effort required to complete tasks. In this post, we’ll focus on the modified Fibonacci Sequence – 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, etc – as an exponential complexity scale (good discussion […

Throughout my career working as a UI/UX designer, it has been a challenge to explain my profession to non-tech people. My reasoning for this is two-fold. For one, it can be difficult to explain because there is a common misconception that software is only made by engineers, and so, the role of a designer is relegated to digital marketing and aesthetics.  The second reason is […]

One of the most important things to focus on before building a mobile application is what architecture you will use. Given the options available in 2021, how do you choose the right one for your Android project?

Entrepreneurs have long been familiar with the idea of a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). The idea, introduced by Eric Ries in his famous book The Lean Startup, provides a scientific approach to building a working product with the most important features to launch something in a market.  The idea is most commonly thought of in the context of an idea-stage startup, where founders can validate […]

ChatGPT has quickly become a go-to tool in the world of AI since its launch. And it’s easy to see why: ChatGPT can generate cohesive, grammatically correct written content based on prompts, translate text, write code, and perform countless useful tasks for marketers, developers, and data analysts. Don’t feel like reading? We made a video that you can listen to or watch at your leisure. […]

Web3 has the potential to completely transform our digital lives. Decentralized applications, non-fungible tokens, and other blockchain-based innovations have opened up new possibilities for online interactions and commerce. But for all of Web3’s potential in creating a more open and transparent internet, blockchain technology has sparked a heated debate, and for good reason: its environmental impact is massive. Bitcoin, the world’s leading cryptocurrency, consumes an […]

Learn how we helped Unlock hire and onboard 27 full-time team members, including developers, designers, and QA engineers, over 16 months.

Python is one of the most powerful and widely used languages in AI and ML development. Its rising popularity in artificial intelligence and machine learning projects is the result of its user-friendly syntax, flexibility, and most importantly, its rich library ecosystem.  Python’s comprehensive libraries streamline tasks from data wrangling to algorithm development. Because ML requires continuous data processing, Python’s library ecosystem enables developers to access,

We are at the cusp of an AI renaissance. This year, we’ve seen a surge of VC investment into the space: the market value of AI companies has surged $21 billion, and one in five new billion-dollar startups to join the Crunchbase Unicorn Board is developing AI tools. The influx has largely been driven by companies developing generative AI products, with applications ranging from natural […

As more tech companies embrace remote and hybrid work options, new challenges emerge for managers who want to build culture and cohesion among remote software development teams. In this guide, we explore the foundational aspects that successfully drive remote teams.

Chef has been popularized by big companies such as Facebook and Airbnb, but you don’t need to be a Fortune 500 company to benefit from it. In fact, you can easily start with just a few servers and use the free version of Chef.

Docker has become a darling of the DevOps community because it enables true independence between applications, environments, infrastructure, and developers. The tool, first released in 2013, was initially developed for Linux, but is now fully supported on macOS and Windows, as well as all major cloud service providers (including AWS, Azure and Google Cloud). In this article, I’ll focus on two of these tools: Docker […]

.NET has become the framework of choice for millions of developers around the world, equipping them to create solid applications for any platform, and Microsoft has done an impressive job making top-notch tools to support them.

These days, developers that write all their own code are rare, and with good reason. Why reinvent the wheel when you can find well written, and well supported, third-party libraries that will help build products faster? Inserting other people’s code into your project does throw up some issues, including the need to effectively manage all of these various libraries. A role commonly filled by dependency managers. […]

Project managers have always had a complicated relationship with testing. In the early days, it was considered a necessary evil that slowed the release process – but saved money in the long term. Technology has moved on since those days so, in the age of mobile development, is testing (and in particular unit testing) still the universal panacea it once was? It’s not just managers

Since 2021, Scalable Path has been carbon-neutral company. You can read more about why we chose fight climate change and how you can, too.

Companies are now prioritizing cost-efficiency and agility as their top business objectives to stay ahead of constantly evolving requirements and maintain a competitive edge. For many, staff augmentation services may be a solution to help meet these goals.

Learn how to execute a review strategy that encourages open dialogue, accurately measures performance, and aligns employees with your business goals.

As projects become more complex for JavaScript developers, new tools and practices arise to improve code quality and workflows. In addition to unit testing, static type checkers such as TypeScript and Flow are becoming the norm among professional development teams. Regardless of project size, the benefits of making code more comprehensible while also catching errors during the development phase have proved invaluable. As a result, […]

Improve the quality of candidates applying for your role with these tips on crafting a stand-out job description.

Preact is a lightweight alternative to React that’s quickly becoming a go-to choice for building high-performance web applications. But is it worth developing your app with Preact, or sticking with a more mature framework, like React? We dig into this question and consider the tradeoffs of each library in this article.

I first started working with iOS fresh out of university. Working with an unfamiliar platform and programming language was challenging. What really made me nervous, was the designs coming from the creative team. I know a great design can breathe new life into a website, but unique high concept designs often require the creation of iOS custom views in UIKit. As a new developer (that […]

In this guide, learn how to define your role, where to look, and how to attract and evaluate top candidates.

There are many types of documentation in the software world. Of these, technical documentation is one of the most frequently neglected.

Here are the guiding principles behind Agile’s ideology that help teams become more flexible, speed up the development process, and bring products to market faster.

A good idea can become a spoiled mess if you use the wrong approach to realize it. Software development is no exception, and broadening your knowledge of Agile processes not only helps keep a project from spoiling but also serves as a powerful tool for your organization. Enter Kanban, the visual, tactile way to coordinate a workflow and reduce waste while maximizing efficiency. Using simple […

Product Owners are one of the most important roles in a product team. The Product Owner represents the business, customers, and/or users, and guides the team toward building the right product (not just any product).   In order to be an effective Product Owner, you first and foremost must be willing to put in the time to do the job well. Beyond that, learning how to […

Any aspiring Product Owner looking to build a great software product could be forgiven for feeling overwhelmed. A quick Google search turns up a lot of conflicting, dated examples for Product Requirements Documents (PRD). That’s because people used to follow the Waterfall methodology and define everything their software would do at the outset (think bloated Use Cases and UML diagrams). We don’t want to waste […

Estimating is, by definition, a guess about the future. The fact is that the majority of software projects aren’t delivered on time, run over budget, and end up with fewer features than originally planned. Over the past 10 years, we’ve developed a methodology

Scrum is perfect for small, remote teams working on complex software products. But its rapid rise in popularity has meant that Agile Project Management with Scrum is often not fully understood, even by those who have been exposed to it. In this series, I hope to clear up some of the confusion around terminology, while providing a clear framework on how we implement Scrum across […

Mobile applications have traditionally been written in native languages. Lately, however, hybrid cross-platform frameworks have been gaining market share. The recent swell of React Native’s popularity has raised the question: should developers use React Native or native for mobile app development?

Using our three-step interview process as a guide, learn how to make interviews smoother and more effective.

Discover how implementing a collaboration process improves the handoff between design and development teams.

Back in the early 2000s, the applications built with .NET were aimed exclusively for Windows desktop and the framework itself was strictly developed and maintained in a closed source format. However, with the introduction of .NET Core, Microsoft made a complete shift and revolutionized software development.

In an era where everyone is looking at performance, accessibility, and developer experience, there’s a new contender in the JavaScript ecosystem that promises to deliver all of these through a radical new approach to building apps: Svelte.

Every new developer learns the following core principles of software engineering early in their career: DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) This acronym encourages developers to avoid code duplication and focus on configurable and reusable components. KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) Always aim for simplicity in your design by avoiding over-engineered solutions. YAGNI (You Ain’t Gonna Need It) Focus on your current requirements, don’t try to

One of the most important things you can do when approaching a data science project is really understand the dataset you’re working with as a first step. Without a proper data exploration process in place, it becomes much more challenging to identify critical issues or successfully carry out a deeper analysis of the dataset. Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) in Data Science is a step in

Recruiting is broken. I don’t say that to be dramatic – I truly believe it. Through traditional job boards, it’s just too easy for candidates to apply for positions they may not be suited for – or even have the qualifications to do. The resulting avalanche of applications and resumes makes it incredibly difficult to separate high-quality candidates from poorly suited ones, and hiring a

Explore React’s new features, benefits for users & developers, implementation, and upcoming plans for the framework’s future.

Have you ever experienced the frustration of cloning a repository and encountering a litany of errors, from missing files to compiler warnings? Working on a new project is already challenging enough, with new tools, code, and logic to learn, and adding a broken build on top of that only creates further complexity for newcomers. Thankfully, there are several solutions to address this issue, ranging from […

Knowing how much to charge can be a challenge for freelancers, especially if you are new to the industry. In this guide, we share how to work out an ideal rate that reflects your experience and skill level for new clients.

In part two of this tutorial series, we look at the key features of GraphQL and how to integrate it with PostGraphile to enhance the back-end of our full-stack application.

Learn how to build a GraphQL API in a Node.js back-end using TypeScript in part one of this full-stack app tutorial.

If you are looking to work as a remote freelancer through Scalable Path, completing your profile is the best way to get noticed and increase your chances of being matched with client projects. Here’s how to get started.