7 min read
February 2026 Scorecard: Four Commitments, One Short Month
Grading my four February commitments: 29 posts in 28 days, two no-tech Sundays, one new engagement against two noes, and sleep stuck at 6.5 hours.
Career
26 articles
5 min read
Do I Miss Being a Principal Engineer? Yes and No
Someone asked if I miss being a principal engineer. What I miss, what I don't, and how to tell good reasons for staying technical from bad ones.
5 min read
Fifty-Five Days In: Being Wrong in Public and Writing on Empty
Fifty-five days of daily posts: calibrating my opinions by being wrong in public, letting go of saved-up ideas, and why the empty-tank days are worth it.
5 min read
The Code Review Comment That Wasn't About the Code
Seven years ago a tech lead answered my pull request with one question about who it was for, and it still shapes how I review code.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
8 min read
What Makes Technical Writing Actually Useful
Most technical posts fail readers with a job to do; here is a five-part template, the gotchas worth including, and when not to use it.
8 min read
The Myth of Continuous Learning: Depth Beats Keeping Up
Trying to learn every new framework and model leads to fatigue, not growth. Why depth, deliberate rest and relevance beat keeping up.
7 min read
The Weekend I Stopped Answering Slack
How I went from working every weekend to zero weekend work: the setup, the team pushback, what changed after eight weeks, and the exceptions I still allow.
8 min read
Why I Still Blog in 2026: Owning the Place I Think Out Loud
Why I still keep a blog when everyone posts on LinkedIn and X: ownership, clearer thinking, and a searchable record of my work.
7 min read
The Tech Parent's Dilemma: Home All Day, Present for None of It
My seven-year-old asked why I'm always on my computer. How remote tech work erased my boundaries, and the rules I'm putting back in place.
5 min read
New Year, Same Foundation: Why I Don't Do Resolutions
Why I stopped making New Year's resolutions, what I'm building on in 2026, and the four questions I'll use to judge the year as a father and practitioner.
1 min read
New Year's Eve 2025: Setting Technical Goals That Actually Work
Consider your current level and career direction: Break annual goals into quarters: The best technical goals are: 1. Connected to your career Not just…
2 min read
Christmas Day Reflection: The Joy of Building Things That Help People
Merry Christmas! Today, as we celebrate with family and friends, I want to share some thoughts on why we do what we do as technologists.
2 min read
Data Engineering Career Retrospective: What Changed in 2025
The data engineering profession evolved dramatically in 2025. As the year ends, here's my retrospective on the skills, tools, and mindsets that defined…
1 min read
Year-End Reflections: Lessons from 2024 and Intentions for 2025
2024 was a year of transformation in data and AI. We saw AI move from impressive demos to production systems, data platforms consolidate around unified…
1 min read
Microsoft Fabric Certification Prep: Getting Ready for DP-600
The DP-600 certification demonstrates your expertise in Microsoft Fabric. Focus on hands-on practice and understanding the "why" behind each feature, not…
4 min read
Holiday Tech Reading List: Books for Azure and AI Enthusiasts
The holidays are the reading catch-up opportunity I look forward to all year—the stack of technical books that accumulated while the project workload was…
2 min read
ChatGPT as a Learning Tool: Accelerating Your Technical Growth
What ChatGPT did better than any other tool I'd used for technical learning was adapt its explanation level to the question's framing—ask "what is a…
7 min read
Why You Should Try Being Self-Employed at Least Once
Five reasons running your own business is worth trying at least once, from the MBA you earn by doing to finding out what clients will actually pay you.
6 min read
Why It's Okay to Be an Ordinary Developer
The 10x engineer myth, vanity metrics and social media make good developers feel small; aim to beat your past self, not the top 1%.