The longer you’re a CTO, the less time you spend making technical decisions — and the more time you spend preventing bad ones.
November 16, 2025 at 9:48 AM
The longer you’re a CTO, the less time you spend making technical decisions — and the more time you spend preventing bad ones.
If your deployment rollback requires a Google Doc and a prayer, that’s not CI/CD — that’s an escape room.
November 16, 2025 at 8:40 AM
If your deployment rollback requires a Google Doc and a prayer, that’s not CI/CD — that’s an escape room.
Competitive multiplayer games are better training for incident response than most workshops: keep calm while everyone blames everyone
November 15, 2025 at 8:08 AM
Competitive multiplayer games are better training for incident response than most workshops: keep calm while everyone blames everyone
Running taught me pacing. Startups taught me pacing with other people’s ankles tied to yours.
November 15, 2025 at 7:58 AM
Running taught me pacing. Startups taught me pacing with other people’s ankles tied to yours.
The closer a metric is to money, the less it lies.
November 14, 2025 at 8:26 PM
The closer a metric is to money, the less it lies.
Compliance is what you must do. Security is what you choose to do when no one is watching.
November 14, 2025 at 7:53 PM
Compliance is what you must do. Security is what you choose to do when no one is watching.
If your standup is 30 minutes and your incident review is 10, you’re optimizing the wrong meeting.
November 13, 2025 at 7:50 PM
If your standup is 30 minutes and your incident review is 10, you’re optimizing the wrong meeting.
Most performance problems are product problems wearing a profiler.
November 13, 2025 at 6:56 PM
Most performance problems are product problems wearing a profiler.
I love reading, but never have time.
So I either listen to audiobooks while running,
or read on a Kindle before bed — to protect my eyes from blue light.
Since I’m cheap and don’t want to pay twice for the same book,
the best way to guarantee I never read it is to buy the hardcover
So I either listen to audiobooks while running,
or read on a Kindle before bed — to protect my eyes from blue light.
Since I’m cheap and don’t want to pay twice for the same book,
the best way to guarantee I never read it is to buy the hardcover
November 12, 2025 at 8:26 PM
I love reading, but never have time.
So I either listen to audiobooks while running,
or read on a Kindle before bed — to protect my eyes from blue light.
Since I’m cheap and don’t want to pay twice for the same book,
the best way to guarantee I never read it is to buy the hardcover
So I either listen to audiobooks while running,
or read on a Kindle before bed — to protect my eyes from blue light.
Since I’m cheap and don’t want to pay twice for the same book,
the best way to guarantee I never read it is to buy the hardcover
Microservices are great until your feature spans six repos and three release trains.
November 12, 2025 at 7:52 PM
Microservices are great until your feature spans six repos and three release trains.
Hiring signal: candidates who ask ‘what hurts today?’ beat candidates who ask ‘what stack?’
November 11, 2025 at 6:07 PM
Hiring signal: candidates who ask ‘what hurts today?’ beat candidates who ask ‘what stack?’
Culture isn’t what you write in Notion. It’s what survives during incidents.
November 11, 2025 at 5:39 PM
Culture isn’t what you write in Notion. It’s what survives during incidents.
The pain of microblogging:
I try to write short, sharp posts — provoke a bit, cut the fluff.
Then I get frustrated when people miss the nuance and take it literally.
Maybe I’m just not built for a format that rewards being loud over being precise.
I try to write short, sharp posts — provoke a bit, cut the fluff.
Then I get frustrated when people miss the nuance and take it literally.
Maybe I’m just not built for a format that rewards being loud over being precise.
November 10, 2025 at 6:05 PM
The pain of microblogging:
I try to write short, sharp posts — provoke a bit, cut the fluff.
Then I get frustrated when people miss the nuance and take it literally.
Maybe I’m just not built for a format that rewards being loud over being precise.
I try to write short, sharp posts — provoke a bit, cut the fluff.
Then I get frustrated when people miss the nuance and take it literally.
Maybe I’m just not built for a format that rewards being loud over being precise.
Posting here is my way of fighting imposter syndrome.
I can’t tell if I’m a grown man and a CTO of a successful startup —
or just a kid who still needs the approval of his peers and teachers more than anything else.
I can’t tell if I’m a grown man and a CTO of a successful startup —
or just a kid who still needs the approval of his peers and teachers more than anything else.
November 10, 2025 at 5:19 PM
Posting here is my way of fighting imposter syndrome.
I can’t tell if I’m a grown man and a CTO of a successful startup —
or just a kid who still needs the approval of his peers and teachers more than anything else.
I can’t tell if I’m a grown man and a CTO of a successful startup —
or just a kid who still needs the approval of his peers and teachers more than anything else.
I play a fun game with our hiring managers.
I tell them great engineers can pick up Spring fast, even without experience.
They nod in agreement — and then hire only people who’ve already used Spring.
I tell them great engineers can pick up Spring fast, even without experience.
They nod in agreement — and then hire only people who’ve already used Spring.
November 9, 2025 at 9:48 AM
I play a fun game with our hiring managers.
I tell them great engineers can pick up Spring fast, even without experience.
They nod in agreement — and then hire only people who’ve already used Spring.
I tell them great engineers can pick up Spring fast, even without experience.
They nod in agreement — and then hire only people who’ve already used Spring.
Every quick hotfix is like putting tech debt on a credit card.
It accrues interest at 28% APR.
It accrues interest at 28% APR.
November 9, 2025 at 8:40 AM
Every quick hotfix is like putting tech debt on a credit card.
It accrues interest at 28% APR.
It accrues interest at 28% APR.
Reliability tip: make recovery inevitable. Prevention is optional.
November 8, 2025 at 8:08 AM
Reliability tip: make recovery inevitable. Prevention is optional.
GenAI is amazing at getting you to 90%. The remaining 10% is the part your users notice.
November 8, 2025 at 7:58 AM
GenAI is amazing at getting you to 90%. The remaining 10% is the part your users notice.
If your cloud bill is below $10k/month, you probably shouldn’t be using AWS in the first place.
November 7, 2025 at 8:26 PM
If your cloud bill is below $10k/month, you probably shouldn’t be using AWS in the first place.
There are two wolves fighting in me:
One says we made our lives harder by starting with microservices.
The other says we’d never have had time to split the monolith once hypergrowth hit.
One says we made our lives harder by starting with microservices.
The other says we’d never have had time to split the monolith once hypergrowth hit.
November 7, 2025 at 7:53 PM
There are two wolves fighting in me:
One says we made our lives harder by starting with microservices.
The other says we’d never have had time to split the monolith once hypergrowth hit.
One says we made our lives harder by starting with microservices.
The other says we’d never have had time to split the monolith once hypergrowth hit.
If your OKRs don’t change how people spend their week, they’re just seasonal wall art.
November 6, 2025 at 7:50 PM
If your OKRs don’t change how people spend their week, they’re just seasonal wall art.
Most architecture debates aren’t about technology. They’re about who has to wake up at 3 a.m.
November 6, 2025 at 6:56 PM
Most architecture debates aren’t about technology. They’re about who has to wake up at 3 a.m.
Still can’t believe someone decided that declaring dependencies as >= 3.1.2 was a good idea — and half of the industry went, ‘yeah, that seems fine.’
November 3, 2025 at 6:05 PM
Still can’t believe someone decided that declaring dependencies as >= 3.1.2 was a good idea — and half of the industry went, ‘yeah, that seems fine.’
I love Hamburg — lived there for 5 years and always happy to visit.
But I’ll never understand how Hamburgers manage to be happier than most Germans while surviving a negative number of sunny days for six months straight.
www.skl-gluecksatlas.de/artikel/glue...
But I’ll never understand how Hamburgers manage to be happier than most Germans while surviving a negative number of sunny days for six months straight.
www.skl-gluecksatlas.de/artikel/glue...
Auf dem Zufriedenheitsplateau
Die Lebenszufriedenheit in Deutschland legt 2025 eine Verschnaufpause ein: Sie stagniert nahezu und liegt mit 7,09 Punkten auf dem soliden Niveau vor der Pandemie. Während die Menschen mit Arbeit,…
www.skl-gluecksatlas.de
November 3, 2025 at 5:19 PM
I love Hamburg — lived there for 5 years and always happy to visit.
But I’ll never understand how Hamburgers manage to be happier than most Germans while surviving a negative number of sunny days for six months straight.
www.skl-gluecksatlas.de/artikel/glue...
But I’ll never understand how Hamburgers manage to be happier than most Germans while surviving a negative number of sunny days for six months straight.
www.skl-gluecksatlas.de/artikel/glue...
Correlation or causation?
The engineers most eager to hire QAs always seem to work on the codebase with the lowest test coverage.
The engineers most eager to hire QAs always seem to work on the codebase with the lowest test coverage.
October 31, 2025 at 8:26 PM
Correlation or causation?
The engineers most eager to hire QAs always seem to work on the codebase with the lowest test coverage.
The engineers most eager to hire QAs always seem to work on the codebase with the lowest test coverage.