The Archive.
Every piece we've published, in reverse chronological order. Reporting, essays, and field notes on AI and the work software engineers are actually being asked to do.
- No. 043
The Five Roles Replacing ‘Engineer’ and ‘Designer’ on AI-Native Teams
Your job title used to name the work you did by hand. As AI takes over that hands-on part, the title stops describing you — and one of five roles does instead. Here’s how to name yours and aim it at a team that needs it.
6 min · Articles - No. 042
Everyone Worried About AI Is Defending the Wrong Skill
The worry "AI will take my job" hides a bad assumption: that a job is one task done by hand. Here's the skill that's actually safe — the same one behind a record share of 2026's solo-founded startups — for anyone watching AI absorb more of their work each month.
4 min · Articles - No. 041
Your Next Customer Is an AI. Here's What It Actually Reads.
When an agent does the shortlisting and buying, the persuasion half of marketing goes quiet. Here's what an AI customer actually weighs — and how to make your product the one it picks. For anyone whose job is to get a product chosen.
6 min · Articles - No. 040
Knowing How to Use the Software Stopped Being the Job
The next account signing up for your product may not be a person — it's an agent acting for one. This explains why "operating the software" is now the automatable layer, and what to do about it, whether you build software or live inside it all day.
5 min · Articles - No. 039
Your Job Feels Like a Chore Because You're Solving a Problem AI Already Solved
Your work stopped feeling satisfying and it's easy to blame AI for taking the joy. The more useful read: AI didn't take your purpose — it retired the problem your purpose was attached to. Here's where the satisfaction went, and how to follow it.
4 min · Articles - No. 038
Your Job Is To Train The Agent, Not Do The Work
If you lead a small team in the AI era, the job changed under you: the unit of work is no longer the task your people finish, it's the agent they teach to finish it. Here's how to restructure a small team around that — and the one loop that makes it work.
8 min · Articles - No. 037
Junior Engineers Got Promoted. Junior Engineering Got Automated.
The entry-level coding tasks really did get absorbed by AI — but the panic mislabels what happened. Here's the one skill that used to take years to reach, why it's now the price of entry, and how to build it on purpose if you're early in your career.
8 min · Articles - No. 036
AI Was Sold as the Great Equalizer. It's a Sorting Machine.
The promise was that AI would flatten the gap between the skilled and the unskilled. It does the opposite: it pays back the judgment you bring, so the gap gets wider — and it falls hardest on the people who hoped to skip the work.
12 min · Articles - No. 035
You're Not Paid to Read Every Line Anymore — and Pretending You Still Are Is the Risk
The craft of engineering is quietly moving from writing code to vouching for code you didn't write. The skill that replaces “I read every line” isn't reading harder — it's building the evaluators, harnesses, and proofs that let you stand behind output you can't fully inspect.
14 min · Articles - No. 034
The Better Your AI Output Looks, the More Invisible It Gets
AI hands everyone the same polished average. The moment your work sits in that average, it reads as machine-made — and machine-made reads as forgettable. The edge now is deliberately leaving the defaults.
10 min · Articles - No. 033
Automating the Compliance Check Buys You Speed — But the Real Prize Is That You Stop Fearing Change
Everyone sells AI over regulatory and rote documents as hours saved. The bigger payoff is quieter: once re-checking a change is nearly free, you stop avoiding changes you used to dread. Here’s why that second-order win matters more than the speed — and how to capture it.
5 min · Articles - No. 032
Stop Collecting Prompt Tricks. Bet on What Compounds.
Every prompt hack you memorize is an asset the model vendor marks down on the next release. The skill that survives every upgrade is the one worth your study hours — and it isn’t a magic phrase.
9 min · Articles - No. 031
The Layoff Math and the Founder Boom Are the Same Number
The story that AI deletes jobs and the story that it mints tiny companies aren’t two readings — they’re one number read from opposite ends. The cheaper it gets to build something, the more different things become worth building, and the work scatters into a very large number of small teams.
14 min · Articles - No. 030
Anthropic Writes Over 80% of Its Code With AI — and Just Told You Which Half of Coding to Learn
Anthropic now writes most of its own software with AI, and its own report quietly names the part of the job that's still yours. If you're deciding whether it's worth learning to code, or trying to land a first job in software, here's the half to aim at.
7 min · Articles - No. 029
Right now, you're cheaper than the AI that's supposed to replace you
The companies furthest ahead are quietly paying more to run AI than they'd pay a person to do the same work. Here's why that's true today — and what it means for the bet you're making on your own career.
4 min · Articles - No. 028
Claude Fable 5 Is the Most Powerful Model Anthropic Has Shipped — and the Wrong Default for Almost Everything You Do
Anthropic just put its most powerful model ever into public hands. It's genuinely stunning — and for most of your work, reaching for it is a mistake. Here are 7 things to know about Claude Fable 5 before you spend a dollar on it, and the one situation where it's actually worth double the price. For people who build with Claude.
8 min · Articles - No. 027
Your AI coding assistant isn't getting dumber — your project is getting noisier
As a codebase grows, the model that felt brilliant starts missing the obvious and burning through your usage on simple tasks. It's not the model — it's what you're feeding it. Here's what's actually happening, and 8 changes that fix it. For anyone building real software with AI.
7 min · Articles - No. 026
Forward deployed engineer: what the role really is, and whether you should want it
The fastest-growing title in software looks like consulting — but it ships production code, not slide decks, and it pays like product work. Where the role came from, what the day-to-day actually is, and how to tell if it fits you. For engineers and career-switchers weighing the move.
8 min · Articles - No. 025
Turn Your Last Project Into a Portfolio Case Study in 90 Minutes
You finished the project, but it still reads like a repo, not a credential. Here's the 90-minute rewrite that turns it into what reviewers actually buy — a record of your decisions — for students and career-switchers whose portfolio isn't landing.
6 min · Articles - No. 024
Your Old Career Is the Asset, Not the Gap
You're switching into tech in 2026 without a CS degree, and every guide says grind LeetCode and bury your past. Here's why the career you're leaving — clinical, financial, operational, legal — is your edge, and how to position on it instead.
6 min · Articles - No. 023
They Already Know You Use AI. Here's How to Pass the Interview Anyway.
The interviewer assumes you used AI on the take-home, and "do you use AI?" is now the most-feared question in the loop. Here's how to answer it, and run every round, as the candidate who can direct and verify a machine. For juniors and career-switchers interviewing right now.
7 min · Articles - No. 022
Is It Still Worth Learning to Code in 2026? Yes, But Not to Get Paid for the Typing
Should you still learn to code in 2026, or did AI close the door before you got in? The honest answer, with the 2026 hiring numbers — for the CS student, bootcamp grad, or career switcher deciding whether to start.
7 min · Articles - No. 021
The AI-and-Careers Stats Everyone Repeats, Graded by Evidence
Each canonical AI-and-careers number traced to its primary source and graded A–F — plus the four-question rubric to grade the next one yourself. For anyone whose thumb hovers over the repost button on an AI doom thread.
8 min · Articles - No. 020
AI Should Be Allowed in Interviews
Banning AI in interviews tests memorization. Allowing it tests thinking. For hiring managers and engineering leads tired of the cheating arms race — here’s what an AI-allowed interview reveals, and how to run one.
6 min · Articles - No. 019
You Don’t Have Imposter Syndrome. You Just Skipped the Boring Fundamentals.
That fraud feeling you get in specific technical moments may not be a syndrome to manage — it may be an accurate signal that you skipped a foundation. Here’s how to tell the difference, find the exact gap, and rebuild it. For early-to-mid-career engineers who keep shipping but keep feeling like they’re faking it.
8 min · Articles - No. 018
Should You Specialize Early in Tech? Go Wide First, Then Go Deep
The advice to “pick a niche and grind it” is senior-stage logic aimed at a junior-stage question. Here’s why specializing too early costs more than it ever has, and a first-three-years playbook for finding the right specialty before you commit to it. For engineers one to four years in who are being pushed to go deep before they know what to go deep on.
8 min · Articles - No. 017
Your Agent Says It's Done. Here's How to Actually Know.
An unattended agent run reports “complete” — and you can't tell if it's right without redoing the work yourself. The fix isn't reading harder; it's designing a check the agent can't fudge, before you launch. For people running long, hands-off agents on output they can't simply unit-test.
7 min · Articles - No. 016
Your New Job Is Compute Allocator
The work is starting to run itself — for hours, unattended, on a meter. Here's where you still add value once the agent does the doing, and the two moves that decide whether a run pays off. For people already launching long, hands-off AI agent runs.
6 min · Articles - No. 015
English Is Not the New Programming Language — AI Fluency Is
Everyone has the same AI. A few people get real leverage; most fight it and give up. The gap isn't the tool — it's four habits you can learn. Here's what they are, and how to build each one.
4 min · Articles - No. 014
I Finish Early Now, and I've Never Been More Tired
Why AI made you faster at producing and no faster at understanding — and why that gap is the tiredness you can't explain. For mid-to-senior knowledge workers shipping more than ever and ending each week emptier than they can account for.
14 min · Essays - No. 013
I don't use LangChain. Here's why.
Every load-bearing LLM feature I've shipped was smaller, faster, and easier to debug as fifty lines of my own code than as a framework. Here's the rule I use to decide — and the one case where I reach for the framework anyway. For engineers and tech leads shipping production LLM features they'll own at 2am.
7 min · Articles - No. 012
Shipping More Is How You Stay Junior
The job was never the code. AI just proved it — by taking the code and leaving the part that was always the actual work.
11 min · Essays - No. 011
Build a RAG, they said. It's going to be easy, they said.
You followed the tutorial, embedded your docs, and now it answers questions. Here's why that isn't a production system yet — and how to measure how far off you actually are. For engineers and tech leads about to call a working demo “done.”
10 min · Articles - No. 010
Your script runs. That doesn't make it a pipeline
What actually separates a script that runs end-to-end from a production data pipeline — and the four-question contract you should write before you touch the code.
7 min · Articles - No. 009
Your LinkedIn Profile Is a Landing Page, Not a Résumé — Here's How to Build Every Section
A section-by-section checklist for making your profile both findable by recruiters and convincing once they land. For mid-career professionals job-hunting with a half-finished profile who want a to-do list, not a pep talk.
8 min · Articles - No. 008
I Direct Code Now, and I Still Feel Like I'm Faking It
The job moved from your hands to your judgment, and your hands haven’t forgiven you yet. Here’s the part nobody warns you about — and the part everyone comforts you about wrongly.
12 min · Essays - No. 007
I Build Software to Throw It Away — And That's the Job Now
The instinct that made you a senior engineer — build it to last — was partly insurance against a cost that’s collapsing. Here’s which part of your craft just expired, and which part became the whole job.
14 min · Essays - No. 006
AI Made You a Junior Again. At 40. How Does That Feel?
You've called every hype cycle right for twenty years. That track record is exactly why you're about to get this one wrong — and why you're fighting it in private.
11 min · Essays - No. 005
Using AI to Land a Job Without Faking Your Way Through It
The “use AI but hide it” playbook stopped working the moment everyone started running it. The honest move now is the opposite — and it changes which job you end up holding.
13 min · Essays - No. 004
Status, Not Income: The Real Fear When AI Does Your Job
For senior knowledge workers, the 3 a.m. fear is not the paycheck and not the meaning. It is the room — and almost every move you are making to defend it is the move that is accelerating its loss.
14 min · Essays - No. 003
I Orchestrate AI, I Don't Compete With It
The mid-career trap of becoming a prompter instead of an orchestrator — and the habits that decide which side of year five you end up on.
14 min · Essays - No. 002
Five AI Projects: Every Data Student Should Ship Before Graduating
The projects on your CV are the same projects on everyone else’s CV. The market changed; the bar moved. This essay is about what to ship instead — and how to tell the difference between a tutorial and a hire.
13 min · Essays - No. 001
You Are the Product: Why Your Portfolio Matters More Than Your CV in 2026
The CV was built for a hiring market that no longer exists. The proxies that were supposed to replace it didn’t. There is a different artifact — one you own, not one you submit — and the literature for building it has been sitting in plain sight.
14 min · Essays