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    “Maxi's newsletter is a treasure trove of wisdom for software engineers with a growth mindset. Packed with valuable insights on software design and curated resources that keep you at the forefront of the industry, it's simply a must-read. Elevate your game, one issue at a time.”

    Addy Osmani
    Addy Osmani
    Engineering Lead, Google Chrome
    Maxi Ferreira
    About your host

    Hey, reader 👋

    I'm Maxi—a Staff Software Engineer who has been trying, failing, and sometimes succeeding at scaling frontend applications for the past 15 years.

    I believe that the key to building scalable and maintainable frontends is to develop your software design and architecture skills. The good news is that there are lot of great design and architecture resources out there. The bad news is that most of them are not written with frontend engineers in mind.

    That's why I'm writing Frontend at Scale. Every two weeks, I'll share with you my favorite resources and some of my own thoughts on the challenges of building large frontend applications. My hope is that you'll use these tools to level up your career as a frontend engineer, stretch your architecture muscles, and build better software that lasts longer.

    “Maxi's frontend at scale newsletter does a great job of breaking down a mostly unknown and difficult subject of scaling frontend architecture into easy-to-understand content and provides practical takeaways that you can apply in your existing codebase and career right away!”

    Kurt DiPaolo
    Kurt DiPaolo
    Senior JavaScript Engineer, Help Scout

    Blog & Newsletter Archive

    Looking for previous issues and articles? Check them out here 👇

    November 10, 2024

    A Losing Game

    Software complexity is an impossible enemy and why we must fight it anyway.

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    October 27, 2024

    Separation of Concerns is Great BTW

    How to care about anything without caring about everything.

    Read issue

    October 13, 2024

    Intuitive Programming

    How to write code that is as easy to understand as a well-designed video game.

    Read issue

    September 29, 2024

    Computer, Build Me an App

    Learning to code with AI without feeling terrible about it.

    Read issue

    September 15, 2024

    Make a Mess, Then Clean It Up

    The secret to building great software is writing really, really terrible code.

    Read issue

    September 1, 2024

    How to Write Shy Code

    Decoupling, orthogonality, and the principle of least knowledge in JavaScript.

    Read issue

    August 18, 2024

    In Defense of DRY

    What the DRY Principle is really about, and how to get all of its benefits with none of its drawbacks.

    Read issue

    August 4, 2024

    All Breadth And No Depth

    Stepping outside of your comfort zone, keeping your depth of knowledge, and other ways to level up your career.

    Read issue

    July 21, 2024

    We Need to Talk About Coupling

    Is all coupling 'bad', or is there a 'good' kind of coupling? Also, why is it calling me on a Sunday morning?

    Read issue

    July 7, 2024

    Against The Law

    A full preview of Fundamentals of Frontend Architecture, an exclusive free giveaway, and the return of the bookshelf.

    Read issue

    June 23, 2024

    Domain Modeling for Building UIs

    A winning strategy for overcoming the fear of staring at a blank canvas.

    Read issue

    June 9, 2024

    A Recipe for Getting Unstuck

    Solving hard problems, DOM performance, keeping up with the JS ecosystem, and much more.

    Read issue

    June 4, 2024

    How Deep is Your DOM?

    Is it like the ocean?

    Read article

    May 26, 2024

    Computer Science for Frontend Developers

    Should frontend developers know data structures and algorithms?

    Read issue

    May 12, 2024

    Don't Live With Broken Windows

    How to keep your codebase in good shape by fixing small issues as they come up.

    Read issue

    April 28, 2024

    Breaking Things Down

    Why breaking down large tasks is so important, and how to actually do it.

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    April 16, 2024

    Best Full Stack Development Courses in 2024

    Top full-stack development courses to level up your skills in 2024.

    Read article

    April 14, 2024

    The Least Worst Architecture

    Making architectural decisions, choosing trade-offs, and other impossible tasks.

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    March 31, 2024

    Fantastic Rewrites and How to Avoid Them

    Why rewrites fail (and what to do instead)

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    March 17, 2024

    Welcome to the Future

    AI, Devin, and the future of frontend development.

    Read issue

    March 3, 2024

    Visualizing Frontend Architecture

    How to draw frontend architecture diagrams that actually make sense.

    Read issue

    February 18, 2024

    Measure Once, Cut Twice

    What woodworkers and Jeff Bezos can teach us about software design.

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    February 4, 2024

    Too General Too Soon

    How to stop ourselves from trying to predict the future.

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    January 21, 2024

    The Latest vs. The Greatest

    How to balance boring technology and the need for innovation.

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    January 10, 2024

    Delicious Donut Components

    An interactive guide to component composition with React Server Components

    Read article

    January 7, 2024

    Just Enough Architecture

    How to find the right balance between too much and too little architecture.

    Read issue

    December 24, 2023

    Exciting Times Ahead / The Best of 2023

    Looking forward to a 2024 full of exciting new projects, and a look back at the best of 2023.

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    December 14, 2023

    Top 10 Recommended Books for Frontend Engineers

    Ten fantastic books to level up your frontend development skills in 2024.

    Read article

    December 10, 2023

    A Perfectly Normal Amount of Tech Debt

    Why tech debt isn't always a bad thing, a short but powerful book on software design, using cookies in Next.js, and one of my favorite technical talks of all time.

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    November 26, 2023

    Hard Changes Made Easy

    Preparatory refactoring, empirical software design, the rules of programming, and what’s happening in the world of local-first development.

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    November 12, 2023

    Better Together or Better Apart?

    The life-changing magic of organizing your codebase, hybrid rendering architectures, React server components, and how to draw beautiful diagrams.

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    November 10, 2023

    Hybrid Frontend Architecture with Astro and Starlight

    Building a fully-feature docs site with Astro and Starlight, including authentication and CMS support.

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    October 22, 2023

    Don't Make Me Think

    Cognitive load, cohesion, simplicity, micro-frontends, naming things, and how selfishness is the key to good component design.

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    October 8, 2023

    The Important Stuff

    Architecture, micro frontends, the design system ecosystem, and my favorite full-stack in a box type of book.

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    September 24, 2023

    Refactoring with the Squint Test

    Refactoring, islands architecture, component libraries, and a book about functional programming that doesn't require a Ph.D. in math.

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    September 18, 2023

    Sharing State with Islands Architecture

    Strategies for communicating between interactive components using Islands Architecture, with examples using Astro and React.

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    September 10, 2023

    Fast from the Start

    The cost of JavaScript, my top tips for measuring and optimizing performance, and how wasps can help us ship faster websites.

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    August 27, 2023

    Failing Fast with Prototypes

    Prototyping, reactivity, the golden era of CSS, and giving technical books a second chance.

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    August 13, 2023

    Go Deep, Then Go Broad

    Technical depth, technical breadth, the fundamentals of software architecture, and a model for drawing diagrams that actually make sense.

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    July 30, 2023

    Good Abstraction, Bad Abstraction

    Abstractions, design patterns, DRY, WET, and boring architecture.

    Read issue

    July 16, 2023

    It's All About Complexity

    Complexity, principles for scaling frontend applications, the risks of micro frontends, and more.

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    “This is a *really* well done newsletter.”

    David East
    David East
    Lead DevRel for Project IDX, Google