writing
Writing
Essays on engineering leadership, mentorship, and how AI changes how teams collaborate and ship.
$ ls260 items
- Engineering leadership
- When retrieval lies politely — working notes
- Multi-agent theater vs useful specialization under real load
- The meeting you should replace with a doc — note 257
- When a vendor becomes your process — note 256
- Designing for fewer retries, not prettier dashboards: a field note
- When leadership means clearing drag, not adding process (2025)
- Hiring for ownership, not theatrical confidence under real load
- Sustainability reviews in architecture forums under real load
- Evaluating AI assistance without vanity metrics: what I watch for
- Connectors are the hard part of retrieval under real load
- Teaching judgment without becoming a bottleneck under real load
- Efficiency as reliability practice without the theater
- Growing seniors who can grow others (2024)
- Mentoring in public without performing when the calendar is full
- What Asim Hussain’s green software work asks of us: what I watch for
- Trust compounds slower than roadmaps without the theater
- Owning outcomes when agents ship changes
- When a vendor becomes your process: a field note
- Hand-offs that preserve context when the calendar is full
- Career conversations that change next week’s work: what I watch for
- Collaboration tax and how to cut it: what I watch for
- RAG that fails gracefully when context is thin
- Hiring for ownership, not theatrical confidence without the theater
- Exit strategies for bought AI tooling — note 236
- Connectors are the hard part of retrieval
- When leadership means clearing drag, not adding process in practice
- Pairing as coaching, not surveillance in practice
- Multi-agent theater vs useful specialization
- When retrieval lies politely (2026)
- Build the harness, buy the commodity: a field note
- Grounding answers in systems teams actually run
- Collaboration tax and how to cut it: a field note
- Growing seniors who can grow others — note 227
- Evaluating AI assistance without vanity metrics
- Integration debt after the purchase under real load
- Orchestration without a black-box conductor: a field note
- Teaching judgment without becoming a bottleneck (2024)
- Reorganizing when the product shape changes under real load
- Permissions in RAG: the boring requirement
- Idempotency for agentic side effects for engineering leaders
- Teaching judgment without becoming a bottleneck
- Eval loops for retrieval quality
- Feedback that lands after incidents
- The new cost of custom: maintenance, not typing in practice
- AI literacy as a coaching problem: what I watch for
- When an agent should stop and ask
- When product and platform disagree productively — note 213
- When retrieval lies politely
- Hiring for ownership, not theatrical confidence (2024)
- Cross-team work without a shared roadmap — working notes
- Tool use as a privilege, not a default
- Ceremony is optional; continuity is not without the theater
- Working agreements that age well: a field note
- Reorganizing when the product shape changes — note 206
- Exit strategies for bought AI tooling: what I watch for
- Sustainability reviews in architecture forums in practice
- Coaching through ambiguity without stealing the work — note 203
- Career conversations that change next week’s work — note 202
- Integration debt after the purchase
- Judgment under load: what managers actually practice in practice
- Measuring compute waste in product teams
- Efficiency as reliability practice — note 198
- Exit strategies for bought AI tooling — note 197
- RAG pipelines as team infrastructure without the theater
- Idempotency for agentic side effects under real load
- Carbon-aware scheduling without the slogans in practice
- Cross-team work without a shared roadmap: a field note
- Build less, own more of the outcome in practice
- Growing seniors who can grow others (2025)
- The meeting you should replace with a doc in practice
- Right-sizing infrastructure as leadership work (2026)
- AI literacy as a coaching problem
- Interfaces between teams beat shared Slack channels when the calendar is full
- Cross-team work without a shared roadmap for engineering leaders
- Buy vs build when AI compresses build time in practice
- Event-driven agentic workflows teams can operate
- From demo RAG to operable RAG for engineering leaders
- When to sponsor, when to step back under real load
- Reorganizing when the product shape changes for engineering leaders
- Designing hand-offs between agents and humans — note 180
- Hand-offs that preserve context without the theater
- Carbon-aware scheduling without the slogans (2024)
- RAG pipelines as team infrastructure (2026)
- Mentorship that survives calendar chaos: what I watch for
- Shared ownership across org boundaries in practice
- Leaders who stay close to the craft when the calendar is full
- Alignment is a protocol, not a meeting (2025)
- When a vendor becomes your process — note 172
- Coaching through ambiguity without stealing the work
- The energy cost of flaky CI when the calendar is full
- Designing hand-offs between agents and humans when the calendar is full
- Coaching juniors through AI-assisted workflows — note 168
- RAG pipelines as team infrastructure — note 167
- Shipping with models without losing craft: a field note
- Prompting is not process — harnesses are
- Trust compounds slower than roadmaps under real load
- Agent harnesses: logs, budgets, and kill switches under real load
- AI in the workflow, not on the slide deck
- Designing for fewer retries, not prettier dashboards under real load
- Orchestration without a black-box conductor
- Hiring for ownership, not theatrical confidence — working notes
- Exit strategies for bought AI tooling for engineering leaders
- Working agreements that age well — note 157
- Keeping humans accountable when models draft code: what I watch for
- Sustainability reviews in architecture forums — note 155
- Mentoring in public without performing without the theater
- Shipping with models without losing craft
- When a vendor becomes your process when the calendar is full
- Alignment is a protocol, not a meeting — note 151
- Build less, own more of the outcome under real load
- Idempotency for agentic side effects
- Designing hand-offs between agents and humans without the theater
- Growing seniors who can grow others — working notes
- Build the harness, buy the commodity — note 146
- AI changes tempo; leadership still owns outcomes
- RAG pipelines as team infrastructure in practice
- Who owns the knowledge graph behind the bot? — working notes
- When to sponsor, when to step back (2024)
- Leaders who stay close to the craft for engineering leaders
- Teaching teams to distrust fluent wrongness
- Keeping humans accountable when models draft code
- Cross-team work without a shared roadmap — note 138
- Judgment under load: what managers actually practice — note 137
- When to sponsor, when to step back when the calendar is full
- The psychology of asking for help in engineering under real load
- From demo RAG to operable RAG (2025)
- Efficiency as reliability practice: a field note
- From demo RAG to operable RAG
- Who owns the knowledge graph behind the bot?
- Designing hand-offs between agents and humans
- What Asim Hussain’s green software work asks of us — note 129
- Efficiency as reliability practice when the calendar is full
- When to sponsor, when to step back
- The new cost of custom: maintenance, not typing
- Mentorship that survives calendar chaos in practice
- Agent harnesses: logs, budgets, and kill switches
- Mentorship that survives calendar chaos
- Interfaces between teams beat shared Slack channels (2025)
- Alignment is a protocol, not a meeting: a field note
- Exit strategies for bought AI tooling — working notes
- RAG pipelines as team infrastructure
- Alignment is a protocol, not a meeting without the theater
- Build less, own more of the outcome when the calendar is full
- Hand-offs that preserve context — note 116
- Interfaces between teams beat shared Slack channels — note 115
- Build the harness, buy the commodity — note 114
- Designing for fewer retries, not prettier dashboards in practice
- Coaching juniors through AI-assisted workflows — note 112
- Internal open source across product teams under real load
- Interfaces between teams beat shared Slack channels without the theater
- Contributing without cosplay when the calendar is full
- Contributing without cosplay (2026)
- Designing for fewer retries, not prettier dashboards (2025)
- The energy cost of flaky CI
- Architecture decisions you can reverse (2026)
- Open source as mentorship at scale
- Architecture decisions you can reverse
- Open source governance for small teams (2026)
- Cross-team work without a shared roadmap without the theater
- Ceremony is optional; continuity is not
- When leadership means clearing drag, not adding process — working notes
- Maintainer burden and team capacity: what I watch for
- Carbon-aware scheduling without the slogans for engineering leaders
- The meeting you should replace with a doc for engineering leaders
- Platforms you buy still need owners: a field note
- Collaboration tax and how to cut it
- Upstream first as a collaboration habit
- Carbon-aware scheduling without the slogans: what I watch for
- When a vendor becomes your process: what I watch for
- Coaching juniors through AI-assisted workflows
- Leaders who stay close to the craft without the theater
- Documentation that earns its keep — note 88
- Mentoring in public without performing: a field note
- Code review as teaching, not gatekeeping — note 86
- Testing strategy when speed matters (2024)
- API design for humans who inherit it: a field note
- When product and platform disagree productively when the calendar is full
- Mentoring in public without performing — working notes
- Judgment under load: what managers actually practice: what I watch for
- Sustainability reviews in architecture forums without the theater
- Licenses, liability, and leadership judgment — working notes
- Cross-team work without a shared roadmap when the calendar is full
- Contributing without cosplay
- Alignment is a protocol, not a meeting — note 76
- When product and platform disagree productively without the theater
- Ownership is a design problem, not a pep talk
- Incident response that improves the system
- Right-sizing infrastructure as leadership work — note 72
- Shared ownership across org boundaries — note 71
- Conflict as a design input — working notes
- Career conversations that change next week’s work when the calendar is full
- Working agreements that age well — note 68
- Platforms you buy still need owners
- The quiet work of keeping delivery honest: what I watch for
- Internal open source across product teams
- Shared ownership across org boundaries
- Working agreements that age well under real load
- Small platforms that stay operable
- Reorganizing when the product shape changes in practice
- Technical debt with a repayment schedule
- Migrations that respect team capacity (2025)
- What Asim Hussain’s green software work asks of us
- Hiring for ownership, not theatrical confidence in practice
- When product and platform disagree productively — working notes
- Designing for fewer retries, not prettier dashboards
- Buy vs build when AI compresses build time without the theater
- Testing strategy when speed matters
- Hand-offs that preserve context under real load
- Pairing as coaching, not surveillance
- Documentation that earns its keep
- Licenses, liability, and leadership judgment
- Efficiency as reliability practice — working notes
- Build less, own more of the outcome
- Conflict as a design input: what I watch for
- Code review as teaching, not gatekeeping under real load
- Alignment is a protocol, not a meeting: what I watch for
- Growing seniors who can grow others
- Career conversations that change next week’s work for engineering leaders
- Hand-offs that preserve context
- Cross-team work without a shared roadmap
- Buy vs build when AI compresses build time
- When a vendor becomes your process
- Efficiency as reliability practice
- Open source governance for small teams
- The psychology of asking for help in engineering
- Judgment under load: what managers actually practice
- The meeting you should replace with a doc under real load
- Interfaces between teams beat shared Slack channels
- Right-sizing infrastructure as leadership work (2024)
- Hiring for ownership, not theatrical confidence
- Docs PRs as onboarding practice
- When product and platform disagree productively
- Mentoring in public without performing under real load
- Migrations that respect team capacity
- Build the harness, buy the commodity for engineering leaders
- Carbon-aware scheduling without the slogans
- The quiet work of keeping delivery honest
- When leadership means clearing drag, not adding process
- Mentoring in public without performing
- Maintainer burden and team capacity when the calendar is full
- Borrowing patterns, not brand names
- Maintainer burden and team capacity
- Leaders who stay close to the craft
- Exit strategies for bought AI tooling when the calendar is full
- When to fork and when to fund
- Alignment is a protocol, not a meeting
- The meeting you should replace with a doc
- Working agreements that age well
- Right-sizing infrastructure as leadership work
- Trust compounds slower than roadmaps
- Exit strategies for bought AI tooling
- Reorganizing when the product shape changes
- API design for humans who inherit it
- Sustainability reviews in architecture forums
- Career conversations that change next week’s work
- Build the harness, buy the commodity
- Code review as teaching, not gatekeeping
- Conflict as a design input
- Make-or-buy with agents in the mix