Posts

All 62 posts, newest first. ★ marks the most-read.

2026

Nov 2 My AI agents said the tests passed. The tests never ran.
Oct 14 Revisiting Mekran's Will
Sep 16 Done-ish
Jul 15 Nothing to Catch
Jul 7 Burning the 3:40 AM Window
Apr 28 Parachuting In ★
Apr 8 Two tables
Apr 2 You can't borrow muscle memory
Mar 24 Temporary is Permanent
Mar 12 You can use AI every day and still not get better ★
Mar 4 Ideas Die in Drafts
Feb 15 Wider, Not Faster ★
Jan 31 The Rock Tumbler ★

2025

Oct 20 High-Bandwidth Communication
Oct 6 Getting out of my own way: Lessons from becoming a Staff Engineer ★
Jun 22 Why I write (and why you might want to too)
Jun 12 The AI Prisoner's Dilemma ★
Jun 4 I made a game with AI and I don't know how to feel about it ★
Feb 20 Know where you're going (and be open to change) ★

2024

Nov 28 Jekyll to Astro: an AI-assisted migration ★
Jun 8 Personal Finance for Engineers ★
Jun 8 In Python, Rose == 'Red', Violet is not 'Blue'

2023

Nov 4 Launching Effective One-on-One Meetings
Jul 5 Tech Interview Tips and Strategies
Jul 3 The Quadrant Test
May 1 Senior Engineer Job Search Preparation
Jan 24 My Experience with the Amazon Promotion Process ★

2022

Dec 6 Backfill Considerations and Lessons Learned
Jun 3 Reflections on my Amazon Career
Feb 12 Providing Effective Feedback to Engineers
Jan 13 Load Testing Guide

2021

Oct 13 Getting Unstuck

2019

2018

Sep 8 AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate Notes
Sep 4 An Intro to AWS Certifications
Jun 23 What is Churning and Why Should I Care?
Jun 5 More Code Review Best Practices
May 2 Programmer Resources

2017

Jan 30 Dangerous Python Functions, Part 3

2016

Sep 20 DevOps from Scratch, Part 2: Amazon & Terraform
Sep 19 DevOps from Scratch, Part 1: Vagrant & Ansible ★
Sep 12 Refactoring Analogies
Aug 29 Two Trains Talk
Jun 11 Strategies for Writing Useful Tests
Jan 21 How to Land the Right Tech Job for You

2015

Nov 1 How to Prepare for Talks
Oct 16 Answers to Django Security Questions ★
Sep 25 Using Bandit in the Field
Sep 24 Finding Vulnerabilities with Bandit
Sep 10 10 Software Talks to Listen to on Your Way to Work
Aug 15 Dangerous Python Functions, Part 2
Jul 26 Dangerous Python Functions ★
Jul 14 The Sunglasses Scam
Jun 25 Intro to Code Reviews talk
May 27 Impostor Syndrome and Me
May 5 Code Review Best Practices ★

2014

Aug 18 Python / Django Talks
Aug 3 Submitting a Patch to CPython
Jun 10 7 Lessons Learned from Teaching My Brother to Program
May 20 Georgia Tech OMS CS