6 min read
The "Good Job" That Meant the World
What a greenfield project in Atlanta taught me about mentorship — years before I actually understood the lesson.
- java
- leadership
- career
- mentorship
- ai-assisted-dev
Blog
15 years of building systems: the software engineering lessons AI can’t generate
From early WebSphere application servers and monoliths to Spring microservices, event streams, and cloud migrations. AI can generate code, but it doesn’t understand production edge cases, distributed failures, or real-world system trade-offs. These are the practical stories and architectural lessons I’ve gathered along the way — written for engineers at every stage of their career. I talk shop on LinkedIn — or leave a comment on any post below.
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7 min read
The Tuesday morning train to Boston: the bug no specification warned me about
A sole-developer consulting gig in Boston, a demo where 'Delete' didn't delete, and why no AI prompt can reconcile what two people mean by the same word.
- java
- ai-assisted-dev
- career
5 min read
Cold weather, new country, and asynchronous Java: the chapter that built my grit
Alone in a quiet WebSphere Portal office through an Indianapolis winter, with no Slack and no AI to ask. The self-reliance that built is the part no assistant can hand you.
- java
- career
5 min read
The bug that cost $0 and taught me everything AI never will
A missing test case for 'who shouldn't see this' shipped a Change Password portlet to every customer at IBM. The code was correct. The thinking wasn't.
- ai-assisted-dev
- career