7 min read
The Expert Trap: When Knowing the Pattern Stops You Listening
Hired for my Azure expertise on a Fabric migration, I found the client's engineers knew more than I did, and learned why that was exactly the point.
Blog
Thoughts on data engineering, cloud architecture, and technology. 2205 articles and counting.
Showing 24 of 2205 posts — page 6 of 92
8 min read
Why Your Azure OpenAI Prompt Cache Keeps Missing
Azure OpenAI caches prompt prefixes automatically, yet many apps see few cache hits. How to measure the hit rate and fix the prompt shapes that break it.
6 min read
Microsoft Agent Framework in .NET: A February 2026 Preview Field Guide
What Microsoft Agent Framework for .NET really is in February 2026: agents, sessions, tool approvals and handoffs, plus where it fits before it reaches GA.
6 min read
Semantic Kernel Apps in February 2026: Stay, Bridge, or Rewrite
Agent Framework is still in preview and Semantic Kernel is in fix-and-stabilise mode: how to decide whether to stay, bridge, or rewrite in February 2026.
4 min read
Valentine's Day, Phone in the Car: Giving My Wife My Attention
A production alert on date night taught me my wife doesn't need grand gestures. She needs my attention, and my phone was taking it.
8 min read
Monitoring AI in Production: Layers, Owners and a Review Rhythm
Run AI monitoring as an operating rhythm: four layers with owners, what pages versus what waits, and tagging every change so regressions are traceable.
6 min read
Three Filters I Use Before Saying Yes to a Project
Why I stopped saying yes to every consulting project, the three filters I now run each offer through, and how to decline without burning the relationship.
6 min read
Workflow First, Agent Inside: Putting the Model in One Step
Most agent designs only need autonomy in one step. How to build the workflow around it with Agent Framework executors, switch-case edges and loop caps.
5 min read
Writing as Thinking: Forty-One Days and the Delete Step
Forty-one days of daily blogging taught me I write to find ideas, not share them, and that cutting half the draft is where the thinking happens.
9 min read
Leaving ADF and Databricks for Fabric: What Held Up
What consolidating Azure Data Factory, Databricks, Azure SQL and Power BI onto Microsoft Fabric delivered in production, and where the seams still show.
7 min read
Teaching My Kids About Technology: Makers, Not Just Users
When Andriel asked what I do at work, I wrote down what I want my kids to learn first: critical thinking, privacy, boundaries and making things.
8 min read
LLM-as-a-Judge: Check the Judge Before You Trust the Score
An LLM judge has its own biases: how to write pass/fail criteria, measure its kappa and false-pass rate against human labels, and know when to skip it.
3 min read
Our First No-Tech Sunday: Four Phone Reaches and a Creek
The first family day with phones, laptops and tablets put away: the itch in the first hour, the fake-urgent work thoughts, and why we're doing it again.
8 min read
Running Data Pipelines in Production: Reruns, Late Data and Drift
Eight years of data pipelines taught me to plan for reruns, late data and schema drift. The habits that matter, with Delta MERGE and Fabric examples.
8 min read
Azure OpenAI vs OpenAI in 2026: Same Code, Different Contract
With the Azure OpenAI v1 API one OpenAI client works on both, so the choice rests on data processing location, identity, networking, capacity and model timing.
8 min read
Six Short Meetings, One Lost Day: The Real Cost of Context Switching
Why scattered 30-minute meetings can wipe out a day of deep work, what the research actually says about interruptions, and the schedule rules I now use.
8 min read
Agentic Retrieval or a Hand-Built RAG Pipeline? How I Decide
Azure AI Search knowledge bases now plan queries for you, in preview. When to hand over the RAG pipeline, when to keep building it, and how to test both.
5 min read
February 2026: Fewer Threads, Sundays Off, Seven Hours of Sleep
February plan after 31 days of daily writing: keep the habit, take Sundays off tech, narrow to two focus areas, and stop running on five to six hours of sleep.
5 min read
January 2026 Closed Out: What Held, and Three Experiments That Didn't
The final tally on January: 31 posts in 31 days, one working Saturday, three habit experiments that failed, and the short list I'm taking into February.
8 min read
The Day-One Pipeline: Push to Main, Ship to App Service
A minimal GitHub Actions to App Service container pipeline for small apps, and the specific signals that tell you when slots, canaries or flags are worth it.
8 min read
Learning AI Without a PhD: What Transfers From Cloud Engineering
How I moved from cloud and data engineering into AI work without a maths degree: what I learnt in which order, what I skipped, and where engineers go wrong.
8 min read
AI Security Basics: Keys, Quotas and Logs Before Prompt Tricks
The AI security failures that actually cost money are leaked keys, unbounded token spend and sensitive data in logs. Fix those before prompt defences.
4 min read
Grading My January Commitments Before the Month Ends
A mid-course report card on four January commitments: weekend boundaries, being present, daily writing and AI focus, plus three small goals for February.
10 min read
Azure DevOps vs GitHub in 2026: Choosing the Whole Platform
A practitioner's comparison of Azure DevOps and GitHub as complete platforms in early 2026: planning, repos, CI/CD, security, cost and when to run both.