Fundamentals Will Help You Survive the Constant Acceleration of Software Engineering
Fundamentals get talked about constantly, but rarely defined. In this episode I dig into what a fundamental actually is — the building blocks, heuristics, and core characteristics that don't change — ...
21 Sep 13min
You Don't Learn Helplessness - You Learn Control
In 1967, a study on shock avoidance gave us "learned helplessness," and for nearly fifty years that was the prevailing explanation for why people give up. Then the original authors published a follow-...
5 Sep 16min
Why Reducing Complexity Is A Sign of Seniority
As you grow as an engineer, something counterintuitive happens: the systems you build get simpler, not more complex. In this episode, I explore why senior engineers tend to collapse abstractions, acce...
21 Aug 15min
A Pragmatic Definition for Accountability
Accountability is a word you'll hear in your performance reviews, from your manager, and increasingly as you step into leadership. It's also one of the most abused and misunderstood concepts in our in...
14 Aug 22min
Using Substition to Make Decisions Simpler
There's a cognitive trick our brains play whenever we face a hard question or a difficult decision: we quietly swap the hard thing for something easier to answer. It's called substitution, and we do i...
22 Jul 18min
Your Single Most Important Tool for Managing the Uneven Downsides of Risk
The skills you build and the tools you master matter, but they aren't your most important asset when things go wrong — and something eventually will. In this episode, I work through why our careers an...
10 Jul 25min
Why Can't You Go Faster With AI? Focus on the Friction to Find Out
If you are a manager, a lead engineer, or anyone growing into more responsibility, this throwback episode is built for you. We keep hearing the same question, now louder than ever: "Why can't this go ...
24 Jun 19min
Software Engineering Principles That Still Hold Up in an Agentic World - Old Lessons Made New
The skills problem isn't going anywhere — it's just wearing new clothes. In this episode, I unpack how the lessons we learned decades ago (limiting work in progress, the theory of constraints, test-dr...
18 Jun 31min
