29 entries · 2016 to 2026 · RSS
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Musings on engineering and management, some short, some long. Newest first.
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Workslop and who pays for it
Generated text takes seconds to send and minutes to read. I suspect the norm gets set by whoever has the most authority in the thread. AIManagement1 min -
Walls, doors, and the microservices hangover
Everyone is falling out of love with microservices this year. I think the real lesson is about how expensive walls are, and nobody's drawing that part. Engineering8 min -
What do you even do with a staff engineer
You can't hand a staff engineer tickets. Most of managing one seems to be bringing them into rooms and telling them the truth. ManagementCareer3 min
2026, 2 entries
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The model did not do it
Sentences with the model as the subject sound active but behave like the passive voice. Somewhere behind each one, a person is hiding. AIManagement2 min -
A chair for the engineer
I keep wondering why the people who know the system best are so often outside the room where the plans get made. Management3 min
2025, 3 entries
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Management advice has seasons
What counts as a good engineering manager keeps shifting with money and hiring. I've started reading each era's advice like a weather report. ManagementCareer1 min -
Reading AI Engineering out of order
Chip Huyen's AI Engineering is a doorstop worth lifting. I'd read it out of order, evaluation first, and save finetuning for a rainy day. AIEngineeringBooks7 min -
Vibe coding and the people downstream
I love a vibe coded weekend tool. I get nervous the moment somebody else has to depend on it. AIEngineering2 min
2024, 3 entries
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One fat record per request
I've stopped wanting more dashboards. What I want is one wide, boring record for every request, and a way to ask it odd questions. Engineering7 min -
Founder mode and the boxes with no windows
Everyone is arguing about founder mode this month. I keep thinking it's really a complaint about org charts you can't see into. Management3 min -
Packing a go bag for your career
The job market is slow and picky this spring. You can't control whether your job lasts, but you can keep a bag packed by the door. CareerHiring1 min
2023, 3 entries
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Counting the bricks, missing the mortar
It's review season, and the urge to give every engineer a number is back. I keep thinking about the work that never shows up on anyone's chart. ManagementEngineering3 min -
Tidy First and the art of not sweeping the whole house
Kent Beck wrote a tiny book about cleaning up code before you change it. I read it in an evening and have been thinking about it for weeks. EngineeringBooks3 min -
The Friday afternoon list just got shorter
The new language models aren't making my main work faster. They're making the little jobs I always skipped cheap enough to finally try. AIEngineeringManagement1 min
2022, 3 entries
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Reading The Staff Engineer's Path as a manager
I picked up Tanya Reilly's book on the staff engineer role expecting it to be for someone else. It turned out to be partly about me. CareerManagementBooks3 min -
Fewer cooks, same forty-page menu
Everyone is saying "do more with less" this summer. I keep thinking of a diner that lost two cooks and kept every item on the menu. ManagementEngineering3 min -
Reading Team Topologies with snacks
Team Topologies is a short book that reads best out loud with other people. Notes on what I'd want to argue about over lunch, and where it gets misused. ManagementEngineeringBooks9 min
2021, 2 entries
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Titles are not free money
In a hiring market this wild, a bigger title feels like the one thing that costs nothing to offer. I'm suspicious of anything that feels that free. HiringManagement2 min -
The roadmap is a suitcase
Everyone is tired, everyone is hiring, and most roadmaps still assume nothing happened last year. Management1 min
2020, 1 entry
2019, 2 entries
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The ladder that goes sideways
When an engineer asks about becoming a manager, I'm never quite sure which question they're really asking. Usually it isn't about management. ManagementCareer1 min -
Who gets the credit for the glue
Some people hold a team together without writing much code, and career ladders mostly can't see them. I keep wondering whose job that is. ManagementCareer3 min
2018, 3 entries
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The other managers are your team too
New managers pour everything into their reports and leave the managers beside them as strangers. A small thought about that loneliness. ManagementCareer1 min -
A Philosophy of Software Design and the words I was missing
John Ousterhout's short book on complexity gave me words for things I could only feel in code review. I still argue with it about comments. EngineeringBooks7 min -
The last twenty percent of a migration
Most codebases have two of something because a migration stalled in its long tail. I keep wondering why the ending is so hard. Engineering5 min
2017, 2 entries
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Reading The Manager's Path as a map
Camille Fournier's book lays management out role by role. I keep wanting to read it as a house with rooms, not a staircase. ManagementCareerBooks3 min -
The backup in the box
A backup nobody has restored is a bit like the cat in the box. Some thoughts on the code that only wakes up on bad days. Engineering2 min
2016, 2 entries
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All I wanted was a table
Someone wants a filterable table in 2016 and gets handed a reading list. A few thoughts on who ends up paying for our tooling. Engineering2 min -
Sometimes the way forward is copy and paste
A shared function with a flag for every caller, and why I've started to think the kindest fix is to copy it back out. Engineering3 min
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