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Defend your codebase against AI comments
27 Jul 2025
Generative AI tools such as Claude Code, Cursor, Devin, Roo Code, Windsurf have fundamentally changed the process of how software…
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The Slow Path to Everything
8 Jul 2025
Over twenty years in software development, I’ve witnessed an evolution in how code integrates with other code. Each step has…
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The Deployment Constraint: Speed, Safety, and Automation
11 Jun 2025
In software deployment, there exists a fundamental tension between three critical factors: speed, safety, and automation. This forms a triangle…
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Why 5 Whys isn’t enough
29 Dec 2024
5 Whys is a prevalent engineering process in modern tech companies. When your company has operational incidents (and even the…
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Convincing or Instructing
26 Dec 2024
To convince someone, tell them why, then how, then what, in that order. To give an instruction, tell someone what,…
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Managing Expectations
14 Dec 2024
“This team isn’t delivering enough.” You’ve had a fully funded team of engineers working on a product for years. It…
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Stop saying Tech Debt
23 Jul 2023
If you gave two options to someone who cared about business outcomes, about what they could have, which do you…
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What are your engineering culture values?
20 Nov 2022
Perform an activity frequently enough, and you will start to see patterns. After being involved in the process of creating…
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Hiring advice for bootcamp graduates
12 Aug 2021
I’m currently trying to hire as many software engineers as I can, and more and more I’m seeing applications from…
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Manager README 2021
20 Jul 2021
It has been a while since I wrote my first manager README. The idea is simple: help people who are…