In Part 1 of this series, we looked at the hardware that top engineers swear by for their work setups. Now, let's talk about the software tools they rely on to streamline their development workflow.
1. Browsers
When a new browser comes out, developers are of course the first to try it. Recently, Arc and even Brave have received a lot of love from engineers. These browsers offer the usual developer tools, just like the older ones. But what's really appealing is how they're designed to improve productivity.
But even with all the new options, Chrome is still the go-to for most developers. We've all been using it for years. So, it's no surprise that most developers want to stick with the browser that their users are also on.
"I've started using this thing called Arc, which is like an AI dev browser. At work, I obviously just use Chrome." — Akhil Verghese, Senior Software Engineer at Google
2. Core work
A) Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
In the tech world, new IDEs pop up every few years, but VS Code consistently wins over engineers, regardless of team size. It's easy to see why—it comes with almost every plugin you could need and is incredibly customizable. So most developers just go ahead and tweak it to fit their exact needs.
"For my IDE, I mainly use VS Code. Whichever language you're working on, you'll have a lot of extensions available in VS Code. I just install everything to make my life easier." — Bharadwaj Reddy, Senior Software Developer at Anarock Technology
Then, there are also language-specific IDEs that some engineers use. For example, Zara, a software engineer at Amazon, told us she sticks with IntelliJ because she mainly works with Java.
"I primarily work in Java, so I mainly use IntelliJ as my IDE. The rest of the tools depend on the specific task I'm working on, and we also have some internal tools for various purposes." — Zara Ahmed, Senior Software Engineer at Amazon
Finally, there are those who prefer a more minimalistic approach, going for simpler editors like Sublime Text or Atom.
"For coding, I use the Atom editor. People use VS Code and others, but Atom is very simple and clean, created by the GitHub folks. It has great GitHub integration - solves merge conflicts right inside the editor. I don't like overly cluttered tooling, so minimal Atom works great for me." — Amalan Thiyagarajah, Data Engineer at CertifyOS
B) AI in development
AI is everywhere these days, and you can count on developers to use it to its full potential. We noticed that they're mostly relying on AI to handle those mundane coding tasks that used to eat up a lot of their time.
For example, Kishan, a senior software engineer at Curefit, shared that he relies on GitHub Copilot for the smaller coding tasks he tackles daily.
"Recently, I've been using GitHub Copilot a lot. It works with IntelliJ and WebStorm and has made a big difference in handling small coding tasks. It saves me a lot of time and effort." — Kishan Thesiya, Senior Software Engineer at Curefit
"GitHub Copilot has been a game-changer too - I've used it extensively for about 6 months now thanks to a free license from TrueFoundry. The AI assistance for writing and refactoring code is super valuable." — Sai Krishna, Software Engineer at Truefoundry
As you know, new AI code editors keep coming up, but the ones that truly deliver on productivity will always win engineers over. Cursor AI has made a name since last year, with developers switching to it because it predicts code better than others. It's especially popular among those who were already fans of Copilot.
3. Productivity and collaboration
New tools in this category come out so often that we could talk about them forever. So, let's stick to the ones that companies typically use, based on their team size.
Chances are, the choice you make will probably align with what your team is already using anyway.
A) Project management
Larger teams = Asana, Jira, and Monday Dev for detailed task management.
Smaller teams = Trello and Notion for simplicity and ease of use.
"For documentation and note-taking, my team and I rely on Notion. It's pretty straightforward and not overly cluttered." – Anmol Tiwari, Software Engineer at EPAM Anywhere
B) Communication
Startups and smaller teams = Slack is usually the go-to. Some also use Discord.
Bigger companies or those deep in the Microsoft ecosystem = Microsoft Teams
C) Documentation
Larger teams = Confluence, Asana, Basecamp, SharePoint, and for comprehensive and detailed documentation.
Smaller teams = Notion, MkDocs, and GitHub Pages for simpler and more accessible documentation.
"For note-taking, I use Obsidian. Google Sheets and Docs are used for collaboration and documentation." – Shivam Mathur, Freelance Software Engineer
"We use both Google Docs or Confluence at Airbnb for documentation." — Amey Talwane, Software Engineer at Airbnb
The heart of your craft
What stood out in our conversations is that choosing the right hardware and software is important for sure. But more importantly, it reflects who they are as an engineer.
So, let this blog series be your starting point. As you grow, these three things will grow with you: your craft, your code, and your setup. After all, how and where you build something is just as important as what you're building. And that starts with space where your ideas come to life—your ideal work setup.
