Posts about software development, AI tools, and working in tech.
AI builds everything as this huge monster of too much, and now I feel like I’m iterating by trimming things back and perfecting it over time. It’s a bit like working from clay, and allowing the software underneath to expose itself in the…
I don't think it's a coincidence that atproto is taking off at the same time AI is. Well, okay, it kind of is a coincidence. I don't think anybody planned these things to work out at the same time. But it's a lucky alignment that I think…
Earlier this year I wanted to plan a family vacation. For anyone who has ever planned a trip for young kids, you know that that is actually a lot of work. Planning meant researching, booking, and preparation. It meant hunting for places…
For the last week or so I've had an agent working my task board. It picks up a task, writes the code in an isolated worktree, opens a PR, gets CI green, responds to review feedback, and parks the result somewhere I can test it. Then it…
I'm starting A Fresh Blog(tm), this time on Pckt. I wanted a dedicated space to post about development, atproto, and community thoughts, and a new space felt like the right place for it. Plus I wanted to get in on standard.site summer…
The Balanced Engineer Newsletter May 2026 • Issue # 45 ATTENTION: We are 1/3 of the way through the year. 33% already! Where did the time go? These past two months have been a blur (oops I accidentally skipped a newsletter month again). I…
Social media was supposed to connect us, but most of it has turned into ads, division, and loneliness. I'm betting on ATProto as a way to fix that, and not just for developers. Whether you're a scientist, journalist, or just someone who…
It seems like everyone is trying to make predictions right now. The discomfort of not knowing what the future holds is unbearable, and making a prediction (even a terrifying one) feels better than sitting in the ambiguity. When you can…
The Balanced Engineer Newsletter March 2026 • Issue # 44 Hello, March! In the interest of prioritizing balance in my life, I skipped this newsletter in February, so now I have a lot of extra stuff to share! This year has started out…
A former manager of mine recently reached out and asked if I'd come talk to his team about how I use AI in my day-to-day work. I loved this because 1) I was super flattered and 2) I got to prep something super loose and easy. It wasn't a…
Let me be upfront: I'm not a security researcher. I'm a software engineer who, like most of us, thinks about security just enough to not be reckless. But after a year of working with AI agents daily, I've noticed a lot of hand-waving…
I've been trying to write this post for a while now, and I keep putting it off because I don't think I have the right words for what I'm feeling. But I think that's kind of the point. None of us do. We're all just trying to make sense of…
As I've mentioned before, I have pretty mixed feelings on AI. Like many things in life, more than one thing can be true. I'm also going to throw a caveat here up front that most of my examples use GitHub Copilot. I work for GitHub so I…
You can handle so much more than you think
I spent 2025 going from skeptical to genuinely excited about AI tools. My non-tech friends and family spent 2025 learning to hate them. The AI industry has fumbled this introduction so badly that we've turned a useful set of tools into a…