Thoughtful writing for developers

After 47 promotion calibrations, I can tell you why great engineers get passed over. It's not your code quality. It's the visibility game no one teaches you.

I ignored 6 obvious red flags and watched $400K in equity vanish. Here's the startup evaluation checklist I wish I'd had before signing.

I shadowed 12 senior engineers for 30 days. Most don't code until mid-morning. One calls Slack "the enemy." Their actual habits surprised me.

I kept flagging problems nobody asked me to find. Turns out that friction wasn't me overstepping. It was sign #2 that I'd already outgrown my role.

Marcus could code circles around everyone. 7 years experience. Passed over twice. After leading a platform team, I finally get why—it wasn't his code.

Most TDD rejections aren't about your code. After watching 47 proposals succeed or fail, I found 5 patterns that have nothing to do with technical quality.

I went from 2,000+ unorganized bookmarks to a queryable knowledge system. Here's the modified Zettelkasten structure that actually works for code.

I've run promotion committees and watched brilliant engineers stay stuck at senior for 8 years. The difference wasn't technical skill. It was three things nobody talks about.

After tracking 200 PRs, I found most review comments were just noise. Here's the 8-question checklist that cut our turnaround time nearly in half.

Two of three engineers I watched become managers are miserable. Here's the energy audit framework I used to figure out which path actually fits you.