How to 10x your programming skills

Added: 2026-06-04

[00:00:00]reverse engineering. That's it. You can end the video right now. There are things in this world that I like. Then there are things that I love, like the champions of the Premier League, taking my socks off after a long day, and watching code review videos of popular games. I've always wondered though, how did they get the code for this? On top of that, have you seen the GTA San Andreas modding scene? It's crazy, bro.

[00:00:21]Like, how do they do all this without an official modding tool? Well, it turns out reverse engineering, which is basically deconstructing a finished product to understand its inner workings. But big box. What makes cloning different to reverse engineering? It seems like a fancy word for the same thing. You see, you can make fried chicken, but that would be a clone of KFC. Reverse engineering KFC would be what chicken do they use? What seasoning are they using? What's the temperature of their frying oil? In a programmatic sense. If you cloned YouTube, you would just be recreating the functionality of it. Reverse engineering YouTube on the other hand that would be about understanding the specifics like the different network requests, the compression algorithm, the architectural decisions that let YouTube stream video globally. How does the view counter on Tungtung Sahur work and specifically Tungtung Sahur? Now you might argue reverse engineering is only for the security Andes. Any time not spent swarming my troops to token max before the great rugpull is useless. Why would I even reverse engineer? Isn't my time better spent sleeping outside the Y Combinator office? Now, while those are all valid points, let me offer you a rebuttal. They're not. Skill issue. And also, I would argue understanding the technique that gave us Kawawaii Desune San Andreas is very important. Jokes aside, I truly believe reverse engineering is one of the most undervalued skills a programmer can have because it's an excellent resource for learning. Take the case of popular '90s video game Roller Coaster Tycoon. The game runs on less memory than a while loop and node. You can't learn about its glory in a single resource. It would take a combination of courses, books, tutorials, and a lot of experience to understand the solutions in this game.

[00:01:48]But thanks to the extremely talented folks over on the Open RCT2 repo, all you really need to do is look at their implementation. Not only is this repo a great resource for learning, it provides an excellent reason as to why reverse engineering is such a good skill. They took a game from binaries all the way up to a reimplementation in C++. Which brings us to the second benefit of reverse engineering, problem solving.

[00:02:08]Because you're always working backwards.

[00:02:10]Reverse engineering is an amazing way to get better at problem solving skills and actual hands-on practical problems solving skills, not the lead code kind.

[00:02:18]Instead of wondering how to build something, you're thinking about why it was built that way, which is a pretty common thing you have to do as a developer anyway. Now, you don't necessarily have to rebuild an iconic video game in C++ either. Dev tools are an excellent way to learn more about reverse engineering. You can learn a lot about how big tech companies do some of the crazy stuff they do. Have you ever wondered how Reddit serves up the lowest common denominator rage bait dynamically? Well, you can use your dev tools to figure out the rest. You ever wondered why Tik Tok content is so weird? Well, that's on you, bro. My Tik Tok is fine. But instead, you can understand how it uses HTTP to serve dynamic content. Now, my final case for reverse engineering is that it teaches you resourcefulness. You ever meet that engineer that can kind of just fix things without asking too many questions? That's another thing reverse engineering can help you develop. Take the case of Open Goal, one of the craziest reverse engineering projects of all time. They made it possible to play my beloved Jack and Daxter on PC. And for those that don't know, Jack and Daxter is a PS2 exclusive written in a proprietary version of Lisp called Goal.

[00:03:14]Without any documentation or guidance, the team over at Open Goal reconstructed a proprietary language and made it possible to play one of my favorite childhood games. Now, I bet you're thinking, "Great. On top of AI agents, Neoim, C++, and becoming a part-time Renaissance Polymath, I have to figure out how to reverse engineer PS2 games in proprietary languages." Thankfully, you don't. While reverse engineering is a deep iceberg, as a programmer, you can gain all of the benefits by just sticking to the top of it. Even just starting out by consuming reverse engineering content. This channel called Howdy does awesome videos on source code reviews. I love the one on Bellatro. By the way, Hussein Naser has an amazing playlist on dev tool reverse engineering. And my boy Low Level is the GOAT. He has some of the most incredible videos on reverse engineering. If you want to go deeper than consuming content, you can also get into analysis.

[00:03:59]Just open up DevTools and start rumaging through the network requests. like this guy figured out all the spooky stuff LinkedIn does on your computer just with the help of dev tools. This is the point where I personally stopped. Reverse engineering is cool and all, but I'm good, bro. However, I did do the research on how you can go deeper. Don't say I didn't warn you. There's this free and open- source course called Nightmare, which walks you through reverse engineering starting from assembly to using disassembler software like Gedra and IDA. From here, you can also get into doing capture the flag challenges. My boy Lowlevel also has a banger on this. And if you go any deeper at this point, I'd recommend getting some help. You're no longer a programmer. You've lost the sauce.

[00:04:35]You'll end up porting Persona 5 on a calculator. Nonetheless, reverse engineering is a super fun and challenging way to not only improve your programming skills, but to deepen your understanding of how computers work. My favorite part of programming is having those magical moments when you realize how things click. And there's nothing more magical than that, except the sponsor of today's video, Convex.

[00:04:55]Somewhere in the modern tech ecosystem, we've been reduced to playing Roller Coaster Tycoon with our different services just to make sure our tools stay in sync. Convex saw that problem and said, "Fine, I'll do it myself."

[00:05:06]Convex is the back-end platform where everything is code. Seriously, from your database schemas to your actual operations, it's all Typescript. And just look at that sync, bro. That sync you saw applies to everyone on that page. You ever wonder how they do it?

[00:05:18]You can go check out their code because it's open source, which you can self-host as well. And they're so gigabased. They have a tutorial on how you can migrate away. But why would you?

[00:05:26]You can spin up cron jobs, run backend workflows, use their built-in O, and pull in pre-built components for common backend problems with basically just an npm install. Convex is deeply integrated with all your favorite TypeScript goodies, and it offers support for Python and Rust 2. Now, while Convex takes care of the orchestration, you can go back to building the actual product.

[00:05:45]They have a generous free tier which you can get started with by heading on over to bigboxite.dev/convex.