The brain sandwich is a practical AI coding workflow: understand the problem, let an agent help, then verify and explain its work before sharing it. I was on a 1:1 with Emily, one of our strongest engineers, and we were mostly venting about some of the negatives about AI these days: the crazy amount of code reviews, how the job is changing, and the last one (which is the most relevant for this pos

AI-generated work can look finished without being understood. That uncertainty erodes trust, slows reviews, and leaves colleagues doing the missing work. I want you to picture yourself in the early 1900s (in America), real quick. People have been using horses for their entire lives, and they are pros at it. Entire cities are actually built with the premise that horses are how we move from point A

AI made you faster. But you're not more productive; you're outsourcing the slow part to everyone else “I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.” — Blaise Pascal Because of AI, everyone on your team is more productive than they were a year ago, just ask them. So why isn’t the company itself faster? I think I know why. Let’s say an engineer needs to write a tech brief for

AI is great when it extends your brain. It gets dangerous when it quietly replaces the part that was supposed to think. I’m angry right now. Not at Dario. Not at Sam. Definitely not at you, reader. I’m angry at myself. A few days ago, there was a new Sentry issue. I copied the link, pasted it into a Claude Skill I built, and asked Claude to investigate it. Then I asked Claude to create a PR. The P

If you want something at work, say it out loud. Your silence isn't saving you. You’re in a 1:1 with your manager, and things are going just fine. You talk about the project and that other thing. Toward the end, she asks: “Anything else?” And there is something else. You want to lead that new initiative. Or move to a different team. Or you’ve been thinking about what stands in the way of your promo

What people call "good taste" is really just experience earned through reps. Stop making it sound innate. “In the age of AI, taste is the ultimate differentiator.” I keep seeing a version of this on a weekly basis. That in the age of AI, taste is the only thing that matters! Taste is what AI can’t replace! And it’s not that I disagree with it… parts of it actually make sense. But I think I finally

We reward complexity and ignore simplicity. In interviews, design reviews, and promotions. Here's how to fix it. “Simplicity is a great virtue, but it requires hard work to achieve and education to appreciate. And to make matters worse, complexity sells better.” — Edsger Dijkstra I think there’s something quietly screwing up a lot of engineering teams. In interviews, in promotion packets, in desig

'What do you think?' without a position isn't a question — it's a task assignment. State your opinion first. Let people react to something concrete. I got a Slack message the other week, just “What do you think?” with a link to a Notion document. No context or indication of what this person actually believed. Just a link and a question mark. I stared at it for a minute, trying to decide if I was a

I still code as an engineering manager. Not to stay busy, but to show my team what good looks like. I still code on my team. Not every day, and almost never on critical path work, but regularly enough that I know what our codebase actually looks like. The parts that are a joy to work in and the parts that aren’t. Why not critical path? Because that’s not my job anymore. Taking the interesting, hig

Why I stopped consuming content at 2x speed, and the simple rule that changed how I listen to everything. “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” — Anne Lamott Over the past year, I’ve made a change to how I consume content. Everything is at 1x now: podcasts, YouTube videos, audiobooks. All of it. I also made a rule for myself: if something isn’t wort