The last thing an engineer wants to see is their GitHub avatar next to the pull request that caused an outage.

Yet there it was. My smiling face. On that PR.

This was my first year at PostHog, and it felt like a real test of the culture. Would they blame me? Let it quietly color opinions of my work? Fire me over a mistake?

Nah.

My colleagues were supportive and understanding. The question wasn’t “who do we blame?” but “what allowed this to happen and how do we prevent it?” This is a company that looks at failure through the lens of systems and incentives, not individual fault. It embraces the ideas of blameless post-mortems.

If we go with “blame” as the predominant approach, then we’re implicitly accepting that deterrence is how organizations become safer. This is founded in the belief that individuals, not situations, cause errors.

That moment is just one of many reasons why I love working here. This is a company that backs up its principles with action.

A Year of PostHog

A year ago today, I started at PostHog, and it has been even better than I hoped. When I joined, I wrote:

Their company handbook really impressed me. What it communicates to me is that this is a remote-friendly company that values transparency, autonomy, and trust. It’s a company that treats its employees like adults and tries to minimize overhead.

It is easy to be cynical about company handbooks and the values they claim to uphold. Enron famously promoted Integrity, Respect, Communication, and Excellence (RICE) as its values, but we all know how that turned out.

What has stood out to me at PostHog is that the handbook reflects reality. The company thinks deeply about how it wants to operate and is willing to adjust when things drift. At our most recent all-company off-site in Tulum, we even revisited and changed some of our values to better reflect how we actually work.

That kind of self-awareness is rare. It’s one big reason why I love working here. Also, Tulum.

Retirement Job?

When Microsoft acquired GitHub, it gave me a lot of options. I took time off. I started a YC company. That company did not work out, so I took more time off. I was not in a hurry to get back to work, but I did miss the camaraderie of building things with other people. That is what led me to interview at PostHog.

In my interview, one of the founders asked an interesting question. Given that it seemed like I did not need to work, would I be motivated to work hard at PostHog? In other words, was this a “retirement job”?

Of course I said I would work hard. What else could I say?

But here’s what I didn’t say: writing code and building product doesn’t feel like hard work to me, at least not compared to what I did before. As a Director of Engineering, so much of my energy went into bureaucracy, politics, and navigating bad incentives.

That was exhausting.

Writing code is how I unwind.

So in a way, yes, this is a retirement job. Because I love doing it.

Polyglot

I also still have a lot to learn, and this has been a great place to do it.

My team builds the Feature Flags product, which spans the backend service, the frontend UI, and a large collection of SDKs. Over the past year, I have written production code in Python, TypeScript, Rust, Go, Ruby, Elixir, C#, and even PHP.

Yes, PHP. I held out for thirty years. The streak is over.

At one point, I shipped the same ETag caching feature to seven different SDKs in seven different languages in three days.

I am not an expert in all of these languages. But with a solid foundation in programming principles, and a lot of help from LLMs, I have been able to ramp up quickly.

Working across so many languages and paradigms has stretched my thinking and deepened my understanding of how software systems are built.

Team Lead

A while back I wrote Chutes and Ladder career path about how careers do not have to follow a neat, linear ladder. True to that idea, after a year as an individual contributor, I am stepping into a team lead role.

This was not something I actively sought out. I genuinely love being an IC. But, as has often happened in my career, this change grew out of a real need. We are carving out a new Flags Platform team from the Feature Flags team.

What excites me most about this split is the chance to focus deeply on the platform itself.

I am excited to see what year two brings. I will be spending a lot more time in Rust, pushing our flags platform to be faster and more resilient, and working my butt off to ensure my face stays out of future root cause analysis reports.

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According to Bloomberg, Discord has confidentially filed for a U.S. IPO. Reuters reports: The U.S. IPO market regained momentum in 2025 after nearly three years of sluggish activity, but hopes for a stronger rebound were tempered by tariff-driven volatility, a prolonged government shutdown and a late-year selloff in artificial intelligence stocks. Discord, which was founded in 2015, offers voice, video and text chatting capabilities aimed at gamers and streamers. According to a statement in December, the platform has more than 200 million monthly users.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

You can now use up to 90% of the desktop screen space when streaming Android apps to Windows 11 using the Microsoft Phone Link app. This feature is called “Expanded screen,” and it’s now available for everyone. If you still don’t see it, head to the Microsoft Store and check for updates. Still not there? It could be rolling out for your account.

Windows 11’s Phone Link app has long offered Android apps streaming if you owned one of the supported hardware. But up until now, you could only mirror apps in a compact view (limited screen space). This changes with the new “expanded screen,” which allows Android apps to expand across your desktop.

As you can see in the above screenshot, when you try to open Android apps on your PC using Microsoft Phone Link, you’ll see a nudge that says apps can be viewed in Expanded screen. This feature was previously tested with Windows Insiders, and it’s now available for everyone.

“Expanded screen” isn’t a new Windows UI for the app. When you use the feature, Phone Link tells your phone to relaunch the same Android app in a wider layout, then streams that bigger layout to your PC.

Microsoft warns that some apps need a restart to switch layouts, and some apps don’t support expanded layouts at all. That’s exactly what happens on Android when an app has to reload for a new screen configuration.

It’s kind of using “tablet-style” behavior, but in reality, it looks like Microsoft is calling Android to render large-screen layouts when it’s streaming Apps to the desktop. When Android signals that the app supports wider layouts, Phone Link creates a bigger “canvas” for the phone app to run in, then mirrors that view back to Windows.

I call it “almost-full-screen” because it leaves up to 10% of the desktop screen space unused for some reason, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft figures out a trick for that as well, especially since Android is open-source.

Moreover, it doesn’t work well with some Android apps, such as WhatsApp, which is a blurry mess when streamed in full-screen:

I don’t have the “Apps” screen in the Phone Link app for streaming Android apps to Windows 11

If you don’t see the “Apps” section in the Phone Link app, it’s likely because you don’t own one of the supported phones.

Phone Link’s Apps feature is available on select phones from Samsung, HONOR, OPPO, ASUS, vivo, and Xiaomi that come with Link to Windows pre-installed.

In a support document, Microsoft lists a few recent examples, including Galaxy Fold, Note20 5G/Ultra, S22, S23, S24+, plus devices like HONOR Magic4 Pro and Magic6 series, OnePlus series, OPPO Find and Reno series, Realme series, and some Xiaomi phones.

If your phone is running Android 11 or newer, you may also qualify for the multiple apps experience.

In addition to full-screen Android apps streaming, Microsoft recently rolled out the ability to lock PC from your Android phones, and more.

The post Windows 11’s “almost full-screen” Android apps mirroring now available for everyone via Phone Link app with supported phones appeared first on Windows Latest

In this post, we explore how to write crime – with examples. We’ve created a quick start guide to writing crime fiction.

Read the other posts in our Quick Start series:

1. A Quick Start Guide To Creating Characters
2. A Quick Start Guide To Writing Fantasy
3. A Quick Start Guide For Beating Writer’s Block
4. A Quick Start Guide To Writing For Children
5. A Quick Start Guide To Writing YA Fiction
6. A Quick Start Guide To Writing A Memoir
7. A Quick Start Guide To Writing Descriptions
8. A Quick Start Guide To Writing Romance
9. A Quick Start Guide To Writing Science Fiction
10. A Quick Start Guide To Foreshadowing
11. A Quick Start Guide To Writing An Inciting Incident
12. A Quick Start Guide To Writing Dialogue
13. A Quick Start Guide To Writing Crime Fiction

A Quick Start Guide To Writing Crime Fiction

Before you start writing a crime novel, you need to decide what kind of crime your book will encompass. Will it be a police procedural, medical crime, nine-people-marooned-on-an-island, a locked room, or an unidentified body in a cabin crime? There are as many different ways of labelling crimes as there are ways to write about them. Thrillers, mysteries, and even horror can fall under crime.

Must-Read: Mystery, Horror, Thriller – What’s The Difference?

You also need to do a lot of research.

Different Country, Different Crime

No matter where you set your book, deep research into what legal definitions and categories crimes fall under in that country. You should look into the cultural, socio-economic causes, reporting levels, and punishments meted out for those crimes. For example, drug-related crimes often get the death penalty in South-East Asia, whereas in Western countries, they can be classified as misdemeanours or a sentence in jail.

Different Countries, Different Police Action And Legal Representation

Don’t assume that what you see on television or film is how the police and the courts actually work. They are completely different in each country. British police don’t carry guns, for example. Even training periods for the police differ. In Germany, the police have to undertake a three-year program including a combination of theoretical and practical training, while police in the USA only undergo a three to twelve months training. Try to interview a police officer or a lawyer in the country or town where your novel is set.

Who Is The Biggest Audience For Fiction Crime Novels?

As with true crime, women are the largest audience for crime novels. It is enjoyed by voracious readers for their psychological twists of human nature, morality, as well as the excitement of solving a mystery. People love crime novels for the intellectual workout they provide – trying to figure out who the villain is before the detective and reading to the end to see if they are right.

Two Important Things To Remember When Writing A Fiction Crime Book

1. As the author, you get to decide on the depth of gore you reveal in the execution of, and result of the crime. But remember your audience. Readers of cozy mysteries don’t want gore. However, readers of the horror-filled Hannibal Lecter series by Thomas Harris, or the noir Mystic River author Dennis Lehane can be relied on for brutal, disturbing descriptions. Depending on the depth of gore you choose, you may want to consider having a clear trigger warning, or a reader age-appropriateness indication on your back cover.
2. Unlike with most genres, crime authors need to control their readers. To manipulate what they’re thinking and when. They need to use foreshadowing and plot twists. A good plot twist requires buildup. So if you want to write one, make sure it’s not only dramatic, but also ‘earned’. To do that, you need to use the interpretation of character’s relationships, and toss clues into incidental, throw-away lines of conversation or descriptions. You need, for example, to use macguffins and guns.

How To Write A Fiction Crime Novel

1. What Would Agatha Christie Do?

A good way to learn how to plot a crime story is to read them. Read as many as you can by authors of the kinds of crime novels you most enjoy. That way, when you are stuck you can ask yourself, ‘What would Agatha Christie do?’ Or James Patterson, Anthony Horowitz, Elmore Leonard, Ann Cleeves, Josephine Tey, Harlan Coben, or Val McDermid. Don’t copy but do draw on and learn from the greats!

2. The Plot And The Crime

The plot revolves around the crime. You don’t necessarily need to start the book with the crime, but you should start your plotting with the crime. Mind mapping is a good way to plot a crime novel. You can also use linear plotting. Mind mapping lets your imagination free reign and will highlight what you will need to research, as well as any holes in your plot. Once you have settled on the crime, you can decide whether you’re going to start (mystery) or end (thriller) with it. Or will your crime happen in the middle of the book?

3. Who Is The Best Narrator

Who is telling the story – the criminal, the detective, an omniscient narrator, an unreliable narrator? Will there be different narrators throughout the book – if so, be very careful of head hopping and keeping the voices distinctly different.

4. When Is The Narrator Telling The Story?

Cozy mysteries are usually past tense, third person, omniscient narrator told from the detective’s POV (point of view). Think Poirot, Miss Marple. Or past tense, first person POV (point of view) and the sidekick’s POV. Think Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Dr Watson. Be mindful of your audience’s expectations and preferences, but don’t be afraid to change things up. After all, one of Agatha Christie’s best books was narrated by the killer.

5. The Good Guys And The Bad Guys Part 1

This group includes the police and the criminals – which may or may not be the same person! You need to create great villains. Think about whether you are going to hide them in plain sight, will the reader know who the villain is but the main character and or the victim be oblivious? If you choose to hide the villain in plain sight, make sure that you have left enough clues throughout the book to ensure that readers are surprised, shocked, but not cheated. Please don’t make your policeman or detective a divorced alcoholic. While they should be flawed, this is such a cliché.

6. The Good Guys And The Bad Guys Part 2

Both of these can be both guilty or innocent actors in the story. Whatever you do, make sure they are not just stage fillers. They must contribute to the solving of the crime in some way. For example, the char-lady dropping the information that after the post arrived the victim had thrown an ornament against the wall, could be a pivot in the story. Or the butcher who says that he was surprised when the victim bought pork chops because, despite having the name of Smith, he was in fact Jewish.

7. The Ingredients Of A Crime Novel

1. The crime – it needs to be a significant crime, not stealing lunch money, unless that leads to murder.
2. The villain/s – anyone can be a killer, depending on the provocation.
3. The detective/s – official or sweet old lady knitting in the corner.
4. Sidekicks – they are not always necessary. Miss Marple didn’t have any, but Sherlock Holmes and Poirot had them. You can also have a confidant.
5. Red Herrings – these need to be strong enough to lead the reader astray. If they are too obviously red herrings there’s no point to them.
6. Clues – all information that the detective learns must be given to the reader as well, usually at the same time as the detective discovers/learns them.
7. Plot and structure – tension and conflict are essential ingredients.
8. The story goal– essential for the shape of the novel. This is usually to find out who committed the crime.
9. Pace – pacing matters. Too slow and you’ll lose your reader. Too fast and the book will feel rushed. A faster pace as the danger to a potential victim increases or when the police are racing to catch the villain before the ship sails.
10. Setting – Agatha Christie was the Queen of Crime and knew the value of a locked room scenario – trains, boats, islands, aeroplanes, snowbound country houses, hotels etc.
11. Atmosphere – Pace and setting are part of the atmosphere or mood. Well-written characters, like Hannibal Lecter, can also increase pace and atmosphere.
12. Tension – situational, relationships, clues, and proximity to danger will increase the tension. Tension is a lot like a body – no body, no crime.
13. Suspects – Unless you’re Daniel Payne and Glen Gers, the screenwriters of Fracture, you need more than one suspect. Around five is a good number. Our brains can only hold so much information at one time. We can remember the names, locations, connections, and motives of four people, but not five. Don’t have too many suspects or the reader will become bored.

The Last Word

It’s almost impossible to list the 10 best crime novels of all time. Every list you look at it littered with works by Agatha Christie, John Grisham, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Arthur Conan Doyle, Wilkie Collins, and James Patterson. There are other authors but these seven prevail. Does that mean you should only read them if you are starting out in writing crime? Certainly not. But each of them can teach you something important about the craft.

You will find many more resources here: 50 (or so) Fabulous Resources For Crime Writers

If you’d like to learn how to write great stories, sign up for one of the rich and in-depth workbooks and courses that Writers Write offers and get your book off to a great start.

Source for image: Pixabay

by Elaine Dodge. Author of The Harcourts of Canada series and The Device Hunter, Elaine trained as a graphic designer, then worked in design, advertising, and broadcast television. She now creates content, mostly in written form, including ghost writing business books, for clients across the globe, but would much rather be drafting her books and short stories.

More Posts From Elaine

1. What Can Jane Austen Teach Writers Today?
2. A Quick Start Guide To Writing Dialogue
3. What Is Deus Ex Machina in Storytelling?
4. What Is True Crime & How Do I Write It?
5. How To Write A Paranormal Story
6. What Is Fan Fiction & How Do I Write It?
7. The 6 Pillars Of Young Adult Fiction
8. Figurative Language – Definition & Examples
9. The 5 Pillars Of Speculative Fiction
10. The 4 Pillars Of Women’s Fiction

Top Tip: Find out more about our workbooks and online courses in our shop.

The post A Quick Start Guide To Writing Crime Fiction appeared first on Writers Write.

I’m in Sunnyvale for a couple of days hanging out with folks on my team. We’re also knee-deep in Google Cloud Next work. I hope you’ve already registered!

[blog] Collaboration sucks. Yeesh, that’s an aggressive way to start the reading list. The point here is to only get the right amount of feedback before taking charge and getting things done.

[blog] Best Flutter Features in 2025. I suspect that AI is going to cause some real disruption on the frontend. We can generate this code more easily now, but new paradigms like generative UIs will spark fresh interest.

[blog] Building internal agents. Great series of posts—nine so far—that explores the considerations and activities needed to build internally-focused AI agents.

[blog] 10 Prioritization Traps. Terrific list. There’s so much we can do, but should we be spending time on?

[article] Don’t Underestimate the Value of Professional Friendships. Don’t overestimate them either—you need friends outside of your business life. But also value the deeper relationships you can build with professional colleagues.

[blog] Bespoke software is the future. You probably have a LOT of custom software (reports, apps, scripts) for internal use. I don’t see why we’ll have any less moving forward.

[blog] What Gemini 3 Pro Changes About Product Design. Interesting post, and some clear implications for those doing design work.

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