Latest

You Never Notice the Janitor 🧹

I swore I’d never be a janitor like my dad. But in tech, I became one anyway—cleaning up code, teams, and culture behind the scenes. You only notice the janitor when everything’s broken. And that’s the point.

The Hidden Cost of Overcompensation

Overcompensating—whether with effort, responsibility, or control—often leads to burnout and missed expectations. In trying to avoid failure, we create it elsewhere. Here’s why we need to protect people over products and build systems that don’t rely on heroes.

💥 When Roles Change, So Do Relationships: How I Navigated a Strained Dynamic After Switching from Manager to IC

When I returned to being an IC, a trusted teammate and I clashed for the first time. Here’s what caused the tension, how we worked through it, and what I learned about leadership, trust, and shifting team dynamics.

What My Final Review as a Manager Revealed About Me (and the Company) 🧾

After stepping down from management, I reflected on my final review. It wasn’t surprising — but it was revealing. Here’s what it said, what it missed, and what it taught me about leadership, growth, and the systems we operate in.

Undermined from the Inside: A Cautionary Tale of Organizational Dysfunction

Undermining doesn’t always look like sabotage. Sometimes it’s a private thread. Sometimes it’s a well-meaning idea dropped into a pull request. But when roles get blurred and decisions bypass the people doing the work, dysfunction takes root.

The Space Between: Navigating the Fault Lines Between EMs, PMs, and Leadership

Engineering managers, product managers, and leadership all want the same thing—but without alignment and trust, they often end up working against each other. Here’s what I’ve learned from the space between roles and how we can make it better.

🧠 We Want Better Resources for Knowledge Sharing

Documentation is one of the most valuable and neglected parts of any engineering org. If you're going to invest in it, make sure you're doing it right—without turning it into another pile of tech debt.

FUBAR: Stop Using Acronyms and Put Some Thought Into Names 💥

Stop naming things like you’re naming a military op. Acronyms, branding, and buzzwords make communication harder, not easier. Good naming is part of good developer experience. Put some care into it.

You’re Not Broken—You’re Just Tired

I fed 8 years of feedback and reviews into ChatGPT to help make sense of my career. What came back wasn’t a summary—it was a mirror. This is a story of growth, burnout, and rediscovering purpose through reflection.

From Critique to Commit: What Graphic Design Taught Me About Writing Code 🎨🧑‍💻

What do design and software engineering have in common? A lot more than you'd think. Here's how lessons from my graphic design career made me a better coder—starting with how to take critique, simplify solutions, and stop overworking your ideas.

What We Weren’t Doing: Takeaways from Agile Training

Our agile training wasn’t mind-blowing—it was a mirror. We weren’t doing the basics: real planning, clear stories, realistic commitments. This is a reflection on the fundamentals we skipped and the lessons that still stick with me today.

🧭 Aligning Goals and Execution: Let Teams Steer, Not Just Row

Direction is only useful when paired with context. If you want teams to steer, not just row, give them the why, make space for voices, and focus on building people—not just products.

Why I Left Digital Retail

I left Digital Retail to find a space that matched my values. After 3.5 years of stalled growth, unrecognized contributions, and philosophical misalignment, Developer Experience gave me a fresh start—and a chance to make engineering better for everyone.

Interviewing a Potential Teammate 101: Tips to Nail the Conversation

Interviewing is about connection, not interrogation. Here’s how to approach it like a conversation, make people feel safe, and maybe even solve a real problem together—especially when hiring someone you’ll actually be working side by side with.