Luis Penedo

Here’s Business Outlook Report from #Citizens for Q1 2026 Proud to share our Citizens Q1 Small & Midsize Business Outlook Report. We surveyed 500 business owners to better understand how they’re approaching the start of the year, especially as tariffs and inflation continue to shape planning and decision-making. The insights offer a helpful look at what’s top of mind for businesses right now. Learn more: https://spr.ly/6047B6XQah #CitizensColleague

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Fake Promotion Promises: The Silent Morale Killer Few things demotivate a team faster than empty promises of promotions. When managers dangle a “next cycle,” “next quarter,” or “once the project is done” carrot without real intent or follow-through employees don’t just lose trust in leadership, they lose faith in the system. What it does to morale: -Creates cynicism and quiet quitting -Drives top performers away -Breeds a culture of skepticism where words mean nothing What to do instead: -Be transparent: If promotion budgets or timelines are uncertain, say so clearly. -Give clarity: Outline measurable goals and the realistic timeframe for advancement. -Offer interim growth: Titles aren’t the only motivator stretch assignments, visibility, and meaningful feedback go a long way. Follow through: A promise kept even a small one builds credibility that no “motivational talk” can replace. Promotions may be delayed, but honesty should never be. #clarity #transparency #growth

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Did you know data tokenization can be used for a variety of applications, from securing online payments to training machine learning models? Learn how it can help you get the most out of your data in this free white paper from Capital One Software. https://bit.ly/3J3r8Oi

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Chicago enterprises running legacy .NET applications face a critical decision: Modernize or replace? Choosing the wrong path can increase costs, delay innovation, and create long-term technical debt. Choosing the right one can extend system life, improve performance, and accelerate digital transformation. This article breaks down: ✔ When modernization makes sense ✔ When replacement is the smarter move ✔ How to hire the right .NET developers for each approach 🔗 Read the full analysis: https://lnkd.in/d5Bye-Ec #DotNet #SoftwareModernization #ChicagoTech #EnterpriseArchitecture #LegacySystems #CTOStrategy #HireDotNetDevelopers

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Excited to share that Capital One has entered into an agreement to acquire Brex, a modern, AI-native software platform offering intelligent finance solutions that make it easy for businesses to issue corporate cards, automate expense management and make secure, real-time payments. https://bit.ly/3ZuzRgU

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The longer I work in software development, the more I realize that beginners don’t just need technical guidance, they need perspective, encouragement, and real-world lessons that experience brings.

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A great observation that well written git commit messages are easy for LLMs to extract value from adding even more value to a good commit message policy.

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🚀 NgRx 21 — 10 Years of State Management, Now Signals-First NgRx 21 celebrates a decade of NgRx while taking a big step toward Angular’s Signals-based future with the introduction of @ngrx/signals/events. 🔍 What’s technically significant in NgRx 21? 🧩 @ngrx/signals/events A new primitive focused on event-driven architecture using Angular Signals: • Explicit event modeling instead of action overload • Clear separation of events → side effects → state updates • Reduced boilerplate compared to traditional Actions + Effects • Fine-grained reactivity with Signals (no unnecessary stream emissions) This makes complex flows easier to reason about while keeping NgRx’s core principles intact. ⸻ ⚡ Signals-First Reactive Model • Moves away from RxJS-heavy patterns where they aren’t required • Enables synchronous, predictable state transitions • Better performance via fine-grained dependency tracking • Ideal for modern Angular apps using signal(), computed(), and effect() ⸻ 🧠 Improved Architecture & DX • Cleaner APIs across NgRx packages • More composable building blocks • Easier onboarding for teams new to NgRx • Stronger alignment with Angular’s recommended direction ⸻ 🏗️ Why this matters for real-world apps For large-scale Angular applications: • Less cognitive overhead in complex workflows • More maintainable state and side-effect management • Better testability (events and state updates are easier to isolate) • Smooth migration path from classic NgRx to Signals-based patterns NgRx 21 proves that enterprise-grade state management doesn’t have to be verbose — and that Signals can coexist cleanly with proven NgRx patterns.

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A great craftsman never blames their tools—but they sure as heck know how to pick the right ones. 🛠️ Welcome to Part 4 of my series on building a QA Center of Excellence (CoE). We’ve covered Charter, Process, and Metrics. Today, we talk about the fourth pillar: Tools & Technology. In a CoE model, the goal isn't to mandate a single tool for everyone. It’s to provide a curated ecosystem that eliminates friction. My philosophy is that the tech stack should be a "force multiplier" for the engineering team, not a maintenance burden. As I’ve been diving deeper into Agentic AI Testing, it’s becoming clear that the next evolution of this pillar isn't just about better scripts—it's about intelligent automation. When building out this pillar, we focus on: Interoperability: Do our tools talk to each other? (From Jira to GitHub to our automation frameworks). Scalability: Can our infrastructure handle a 10x increase in test volume without breaking the bank? The AI Shift: Moving beyond static scripts toward self-healing tests and AI-driven exploratory tools. The right tech stack allows your QA engineers to stop acting like manual data entry clerks and start acting like Quality Architects. As we move into 2026, what’s the one tool in your stack that you consider "un-fireable"? And are you already looking at how AI will replace or augment it? #TestAutomation #AzureAI #QACoE #SoftwareEngineering #TechStack #AIinTesting

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