Things worth writing down
Notes on technology leadership, architecture decisions and what contracting is actually like. Written while doing the work rather than afterwards.
Fractional CTO Insights
Why AI will hit senior developers harder than junior ones
25 Jun 2026
The consensus view is that AI will eliminate junior developer roles first, while senior developers remain indispensable. I think that analysis is backwards.
Honest data freshness: surfacing staleness in your API contract instead of hiding it
23 Jun 2026
Most consolidation projects fail at the same point: hiding a messy freshness model behind a clean UI, then burning cycles on "why hasn't this updated" tickets.
Fractional CTO Insights
How agencies can offer CTO-as-a-service to their clients
18 Jun 2026
Agencies leave CTO-level revenue on the table because partnering feels risky. A practical framework for offering CTO-as-a-service without threatening the
Patterns first, principles second: how I teach architecture to junior-heavy teams
16 Jun 2026
Senior engineers reach for principles first because principles are how seniors think. Juniors learn the other way round. Here is why patterns-first teaching
AI-augmented development explained: what it means and why it matters
11 Jun 2026
AI-augmented development isn't about replacing developers. A non-technical founder's guide to what it actually means, what it costs, what oversight you'll
Why "no throwaway prototype" works with Claude Code
9 Jun 2026
Most proofs of concept get thrown away because they never define a stable contract. Define the contract first, back it with a deliberately stupid mock, and the
Same codebase, two developers, completely different AI output
5 Jun 2026
Two developers on the same codebase, same AI assistant, producing very different code. The codebase is only one layer of context. Here is what actually drives
How to tell if your software project can be rescued -- or if you should start again
4 Jun 2026
Most struggling software projects can be rescued, but not all of them. A practical framework for deciding between rescue and rebuild, written for non-technical
Backend-for-frontend as a deliberate "the UI knows nothing about source systems" boundary
2 Jun 2026
A backend-for-frontend earns its keep when the UI should not know which systems supply the data. On a recent consolidation project, the upstream pipeline
Fractional CTO Insights
SaaS is about to lose its moat
28 May 2026
The software-as-a-service model has dominated enterprise technology for twenty years. It will not collapse. But the structural advantage it has always relied
Technical due diligence for acquisitions: what buyers should assess
25 May 2026
Buying a technology business? What to evaluate in technical due diligence, what the results mean, and how to factor technical debt into your acquisition
How to run code review as your primary teaching channel
21 May 2026
On a junior-heavy team, code review is the highest-bandwidth way to transfer architectural intent. The trick is slowing it down, writing the reasoning rather
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