Nick Basile
Helping you become your dev team's favorite collaborator / running Markham Square / building Awards Coordinator
https://technicallylit.com
nick-basile.com
youtube.com/@nickjbasile
- "you stop designing AT developers, and start designing WITH them" Tech Takes | How do I actually get my designs used by my dev team? __ #productdevelopment #productdesign #startup #webdev #webdesign #ai #design
- Prepping my JavaScript for Designers course! After lots of iterations, I feel like I've finally cracked how to sequence all the JS content so it just clicks right away for designers 😁 We're up to 6 sections and over 50 lessons--can't wait to start filming!
- If you want to learn more and get notified when it's live, check out our site! technicallylit.com/courses/java...
- Anyone else naming their Figma layers like this? 👀 Feels like it helps dev/ai <> design collaboration, but could also get confusing on larger teams. Plus, it assumes design team can work with HTML/CSS structures.
- If you're a designer who's always been curious about how JavaScript variables work, then tomorrow's Technically Lit newsletter is just for you 😄 Sign up today to make sure it lands in your inbox: technicallylit.com/newsletter
- How do product designers keep up with today’s ever expanding list of responsibilities? On the season two premiere of Technically Lit, I sat down with Sylvia Nguyen Dang, Principal Product Designer at DIG, to explore this question and a whole lot more.
- Sylvia shares what it’s like to design at the intersection of healthcare, technology, and collaboration while navigating the flood of new tools without losing sight of what matters most: the people you're designing for.
- Some of my favorite insights: 🎨 Balancing new AI tools with timeless design principles ⚖️ How to decide which new tech is worth adopting (and which to skip) 🤝 Building strong collaboration between designers, PMs, and engineers 🔑 Keeping users at the center, even as tech reshapes the process
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View full threadWant to make smarter technical decisions, collaborate effectively with developers, and thrive in an AI world? Join the Technically Lit newsletter for practical coding lessons & tips, our latest content, plus a little something extra every Friday: technicallylit.com/newsletter
- Our latest Tech Take episode gets into one of the most overlooked parts of product design: loading states. As designers, we love to obsess over finished screens, but the in-between moments are where trust is built (or lost).
- Skeleton loaders, spinners, previews… they aren’t just filler. They’re the direct translation of how data flows, how fast systems respond, and how dev decisions surface to the user.
- It's often where design intent meets dev reality. Miss the mark, and the product feels clunky or broken. Nail it, and even a 10-second wait feels intentional.
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View full threadInterested in more technical tips for designers? Join our newsletter and get a few in your inbox every Friday: technicallylit.com/newsletter
- And… that’s a wrap for season one of the Technically Lit podcast! Thank you so much to all of the incredible guests who joined us on the show. I feel so lucky to have had the chance to speak with each of you.
- It feels like every product conversation these days is hyper-focused on one discipline, and it was so refreshing to hear everyone share how they connect the dots between different roles and job titles, and what it actually takes to build incredible products.
- Looking forward, I’m so incredibly excited to be kicking off season two! This season, we're going to focus a little bit more on product designers - specifically, how they're leveraging technology and coding skills to do their jobs better, faster, and smarter than ever before.
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View full threadWe’ve given our site a light refresh for season two, so check it out to stay in the loop with all of our latest content! technicallylit.com
- Most of our Technically Lit conversations have been with people building in scrappy startup environments. That’s why I’m so excited for our latest episode with Adam Wilson who brings a very different perspective straight from Microsoft.
- At a startup, a PM’s ideas can become the roadmap by default. At Microsoft, Adam is one of 10,000 product managers competing to influence priorities. That means the real job isn’t just writing PRDs--it’s selling optimism, generating buy-in, and aligning entire orgs across multiple leadership chains.
- Adam also shared how his technical background has been a superpower. Early in his career, he was writing code to replicate customer bugs. Today, that fluency lets him navigate Microsoft’s most complex products and collaborate deeply with engineering teams.
- 👉 If you’ve ever wondered how product management changes when you go from a 30-person startup to one of the biggest companies in the world, you won’t want to miss this episode. youtu.be/7LPGK2t65dI
- Stop thinking perfect code = a great product. Your team ships clean architecture. You polish the UI until it gleams. You document every edge case. But none of that guarantees you’re building something users actually need.
- As James Pacheco shared on this week’s Technically Lit episode: “A beautiful product that doesn’t solve a problem people care about is a bad product.”
- Our conversation was jam-packed with so many incredible insights, I had a hard time picking what I should share as the lead-in here. These are a few of my favorites:
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View full thread– And ultimately, good product means solving real pain. Code, design, and process only matter if they multiply against that. Check out the full conversation on YouTube! youtu.be/_WiI8aZnb4M
- Tomorrow’s Technically Lit newsletter dives into a question I’ve been obsessed with: what actually makes a great product team and how you can spot them. We’re now on Substack, so if you want the full breakdown (and future issues) grab the link in the comment 👇
- Join us to get our future issues (and check out our past ones) technicallylit.substack.com
- Stop confusing process with culture. Your team does standups. You run retros. You’ve got a Notion doc for everything. But a full calendar and all the docs in the world won't magically translate into a stellar culture.
- As Ryan Holdaway said on this week's Technically Lit podcast: “Process is how we work. Culture is how we treat each other.” Most teams miss this. They try to fix trust issues with better tooling. Or fix communication with more meetings.
- But culture shows up when things break down. – Can juniors ask “basic” questions? – Is feedback honest or passive aggressive? – Do design, product, and engineering trust each other, or just tolerate? That’s your culture. Not your sprint board.
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View full threadWant more on building high-trust, high-output teams? Check the full convo with Holdy here: 🎧: open.spotify.com/episode/3OHp... 📺: youtu.be/z7G9kwct-dc
- Are product and marketing the ultimate frenemies? Different tools. Different timelines. Same goal: build something people actually want. And when they don’t get along? Everything breaks. 🧵
- In this episode of Technically Lit, I sat down with growth leader Alex Mann to unpack why product + marketing tension runs so deep, and how to fix it.
- We got into: 🤝 How product and marketing can finally stop stepping on each other’s toes ⚙️ The GTM operating system that actually works for early-stage teams 📉 Why “growth loops” became buzzwords, and how to make them real again 🧠 Building marketing systems that learn, not just launch
- If you’re tired of product blaming marketing for “bad leads” and marketing blaming product for “no story"... ...this one's for you. Watch: youtu.be/oTVJP0PuqQw Listen: open.spotify.com/episode/4QZ8...
- Wrote about dealing with the paradox of scaling (how adding more people does not linearly translate to more output) for tomorrow's Technically Lit newsletter. Join us to read all about it: technicallylit.beehiiv.com/subscribe
