Articles

Notes from the work.

Field notes and longer essays on what we’ve learned running senior-led AI engagements. No hype. No predictions. Just patterns we keep seeing.

Field notesShort. One pattern, one move.

EssaysLonger. Where we think it’s going.

CadenceWhen there is something worth writing down.

Vintage botanical study of two goldenberry plants with different branching and growth, illustrated in olive green and burnt orange on cream paper.

Latest · Essay · 12 min read · 27 September 2026

Same tools, 10x the results

Why do engineering teams with the same AI tools get such different results? Three observations from the teams I work with, and seven practical habits to get closer to the 10x.

“A lot of teams added an agent and kept working the same way, so the gains were small.”

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5 of 5 earlier pieces

Entomological plate of a dozen distinct beetle species (Coleoptera) in varied colors and shapes.

Essay · 11 min read · 14 May 2026

Seven bets I would make about engineering in 2026.

Three observations underneath. A planning premise, not a forecast.

Marine zoology plate of eight starfish species in varied colors, illustrating the five-fold symmetry shared across the family.

Field note · 9 min read · 28 April 2026

A five-dimension framework for AI readiness.

Why a single 'AI maturity score' is useless, and what we assess in a one-week benchmark instead.

Ornithological plate of an adult Ural Owl (Syrnium uralense) on a branch with a young owlet beside it.

Essay · 12 min read · 12 April 2026

Why senior engineers are the hardest to upskill on AI.

Twenty years of building deterministic systems makes the new way of working harder, not easier.

Vertical Lepidoptera plate (Plate XIX) showing the full butterfly lifecycle on one branch — feeding caterpillar, hanging chrysalis, adult butterfly, and a separate caterpillar study.

Field note · 8 min read · 22 March 2026

How we structure a 12-week AI engineering engagement.

A walkthrough of what gets done in week one, week six, and the hand-off.

Bee specimen plate (Plate VI) showing six bees including a central orange-banded queen, with measurement reference marks.

Field note · 4 min read · 8 February 2026

The board wants AI. The team is exhausted. Now what.

A short pattern for engineering leaders caught between a mandate and a morale dip.