⏰ Is Youtube's time up?
The Twitter meltdown, plus meet Tami, Software Engineer and advocate for minorities in engineering 👩💻
Hey 👋 Welcome to the latest edition of our newsletter.
We appreciate the continued support and it doesn’t go unnoticed! So, as a way of thanking our supporters, we’ve decided to do a giveaway. If you haven’t already, there’s still time to enter ⬇️
Head over to Instagram & Twitter for your chance to win!
📱 Big Tech & Startups
Image Source: PCmag
Biggest Tech M&As of All Time
There is a constant reshaping of the tech industry, particularly down to mergers, acquisitions, and startups disrupting the landscape. Here are some of the biggest mergers and acquisitions of all time:
Microsoft acquired LinkedIn for $26.2billion in 2016, but to this day still lets LinkedIn remain largely independent.
$7.5billion - Microsoft acquired GitHub in 2018 and continues to integrate the code-sharing platform into its cloud ecosystem.
Facebook buys WhatsApp for $19billion, which is Facebook’s most expensive acquisition to date (with Instagram being only $1bn).
One of Apple’s most expensive acquisitions to date is their acquisition of Beats by Dre for $3billion in 2014.
In 2020, Google acquired Fitbit for $2.1billion.
Salesforce’s biggest acquisition to date is Slack, which cost an eye-watering $27.7billion in 2020, the combination of the platforms will “create the operating system for the new way to work”.
Last month, Reddit was valued at $10bn in a private fundraising round and early next year when the IPO goes live the company expects to be valued at around $15bn. The company makes most of its money from advertising - reporting $100m in advertising revenue in the second quarter, which is almost a threefold jump from the same period last year.
🧪 Science & Futuristic Tech
Image source: Software One
A recent article, on why coders love the AI that could put them out of the job, talks in detail about how the advancements in tools can bite off and reduce the need for big chunks of programming by using artificial intelligence.
An individual on LinkedIn responded to this article with “Writing code is actually probably the easiest part of most jobs I’ve had. Managing expectations and people are the most difficult.”
Another wrote “Yeah, this is going to lead to new ways of doing things, not just replace everybody. It supercharges creativity.”
Some of our favourite companies using AI:
🏔 Peak AI - 📌 hiring for 4 roles
🏥 Babylon Health - 📌 hiring for 4 roles
💻 BJSS - 📌 hiring for 1 role
🧑💻 Programming, Design & Data
giphy
Twitter has been providing updates thick and fast lately, and even sent its users into a meltdown with its change in font 🤯. But if that wasn’t enough, they’ve now announced that they’re trialling edge-to-edge media for those using iOS.
In an email to The Verge, Twitter wrote ‘it’s testing the change because it wants to better support conversations that are both visual and text-based’.
Does Twitter seem to be following in the footsteps of Instagram? Are these changes what users are looking for? We think it looks slick 🤷
⚙️ Miscellaneous
Image Source: BBC News
News brewing elsewhere:
TikTok has surpassed YouTube for the average watch time in the US
Crypto is to become a legal tender in El Salvador, effective as of yesterday!
India has approved the first DNA vaccine against coronavirus
On September 14th, the new iPhone 13 lineup will be announced
Hyundai has announced that by 2028 they will offer fuel-cell versions of all of their vehicles
💣 Highlighted Opportunities
Dev
Fatsoma: Software Developer - 📌 Manchester/ Open to remote
hedgehog lab: System Architect - 📌 Newcastle upon Tyne
accuRx: Senior Full Stack Engineer - 📌 London
Data
Peak: Data Scientist - 📌 Manchester
Waterstons: Lead Data Engineer - 📌 Durham/ Open to remote
Visualsoft: Data Analyst - 📌 Stockton-on-Tees
Design
EPAM: UX Designer (Senior/Lead) - 📌 Newcastle upon Tyne/ Open to remote
THG: Senior UX Designer - 📌 Manchester
Opencast: Interaction Designer - 📌 Newcastle upon Tyne/ Open to remote
📖 Developer Stories
Meet Tami, Software Engineer with a Masters in HR and Advocate for Minorities in Engineering 👩💻
Hi Tami! 😊 Thanks for chatting with us. Fancy kicking us off by introducing yourself and a little bit about your background?
Hey 👋 thanks for having me! I’m originally from a small town in Germany, Cham. It’s in a beautiful area and is part of the Bavarian Forest. After my apprenticeship there, I wanted to do more and moved to a bigger city to catch-up on my A-levels to be able to study Social Work. That’s when I realised I wanted to see more and applied for a masters in Human Resource Management at the University of Edinburgh Business School – thinking that I’ll come back with some more English language skills which will land me a cool job in HR. Things have gone into a very different direction since then and by now I have been in the UK for six years, of which five in London, have changed my career to become a Software Engineer (which I love!) – and have gotten engaged to my partner as well as having the pleasure to become an official ‘cat mum’. Who would have thought all of this when I left the 7000 people town back in 2009 😅.
What are some of your favourite things about working as a developer, and your least favourite?
With my favourite things about it, I don’t even know where to begin. I just love it. Not too long ago I shared a tweet saying how privileged I feel about being able to earn money with something I just love doing anyway. I like solving problems, I like coding, I like how flexible it all is and that all you need in order to do your job is a laptop and internet connection. I like how rewarding it is and that you just keep on learning. It’s such a measurable and objective outcome – if you learn and understand something, you’ll be able to apply it and get better at what you’re doing. I like how challenging it is, but at the same time that everything is possible. And I like that it’s a skillset that truly opens all the doors for you in the digital world. Oh, and last but not least: I like how I can just be myself.
I don’t really have any ‘least favourite’ aspects though. That’s boring, I know, sorry! 😅
✍️ Blog Round-up
The 10 Best Productive Tools for Web Developers
Web developers are dedicated to delivering fast, reliable, and high-quality websites. Thus, to improve our productivity, we need tools that help us provide the best quality software and make our lives easier at the same time. Read more.
15 Useful VS Code Shortcuts to Boost Your Productivity
VS Code is one of the most popular editors for web development. When writing code, we often require certain formatting actions, and a lot of them are supported by VS Code itself. While most actions can be found from Menu options, having hands-on keyboard shortcuts can help improve your coding speed by a lot. Read more.
What I Wish I Knew About CSS When Starting Out
CSS can be hard to grasp when you're starting out. It can seem like magic wizardry and you can very easily find yourself playing whack-a-mole adjusting one property only to have something else break. Read more.