Archive
Browse all 22 blog posts organized by publication date
2026
November (4)
- 10 November 2026
Organising for a Reimagined SDLC
A continuous model of product development changes how I'd organise people: stable teams with end-to-end responsibility, small working groups, broader skills and shared R&D leadership.
- 7 November 2026
What Replaces the SDLC?
I think product development can run continuously around outcomes, with agents trying changes, gathering evidence and earning authority within limits people set. Customers still need a coherent product and changes they can safely adopt.
- 5 November 2026
Nobody Decided That. Why Your Agent System Does Things Anyway.
Agent systems can behave in ways nobody explicitly chose. Making their decisions visible helps, but we also need to observe how the parts interact. Biology offers some useful patterns for keeping those systems reliable.
- 1 November 2026
Don't Automate the SDLC
AI gives us the chance to redesign how we build products around outcomes. Applying it to every stage of the existing software development lifecycle would preserve too many assumptions from a world where implementation was expensive.
October (2)
- 27 October 2026
Nobody Deleted the Managers. We're Just Running Them at 150%.
AI hasn't removed the need for managers' judgement and attention. I think we're taking away the time for both by expecting managers to code more while keeping the rest of the job.
- 14 October 2026
The Agent Is Half the System. Six Tests for the Other Half.
The rubric from my In The Loop talk, with enough method that you can run it yourself. Six yes-or-no questions about identity, spend, policy, observability, replay and oversight, scored on a four-point scale.
September (1)
- 2 September 2026
Reading Your People Is a Skill, and It's Mostly Just Paying Attention
Reading people takes practice and attention to how each person normally shows up. Distributed work makes that more deliberate, because fewer of the signals reach you by accident.
August (4)
- 27 August 2026
AI Killed Story Points. You Still Need a Date.
AI can produce a useful breakdown quickly, which changes what we need from estimation. Teams still need to expose uncertainty and give the business dates it can plan around, and managers need to decide which parts of the ceremony still help.
- 22 August 2026
High Performers Need Different Feedback, Not Less
Managers can go vague with high performers, or stay specific and only ever point out the gaps. Either way, people need to know what they're doing well and what good looks like, as well as where they need to improve.
- 11 August 2026
AI Made You Faster. Why Isn't Your Team Faster?
AI is helping individuals ship more, but my teams' delivery dates haven't compressed. The evidence points to coordination, review and decision-making as the work we need to change.
- 1 August 2026
Direct the System, Not the Agent
HBR and Fortune gave leaders conflicting advice on managing AI agents. My experience of leading people and directing agents points to some useful overlap: setting intent, adjusting autonomy and keeping accountability with a person.
July (1)
- 23 July 2026
Building Got Cheap. Deciding Didn't.
AI makes a first implementation much cheaper. Deciding what to build and getting people aligned still take time, and those costs are becoming harder to ignore.
March (2)
- 15 March 2026
Autonomy Without Accountability Is Just Expensive Chaos
The industry is obsessed with building smarter agents. The real gap is the control plane — the infrastructure that makes agents trustworthy, observable, and accountable at scale. Right now, that infrastructure barely exists.
- 8 March 2026
You Can't Prompt Your Way to Judgment
AI is creating leaner teams and faster code, but it's quietly eliminating the conditions that build engineering judgment. The cognitive debt discourse is missing the point — experience debt is the real problem, and it won't show up on any velocity dashboard.
2025
July (3)
- 14 July 2025
The Engineering Shift AI Demands
AI changes the development stack but not the mission. Product engineers who blur the lines between frontend, backend, and infrastructure are essential for building resilient AI systems.
- 10 July 2025
Developer Trust Is Earned, Not Broadcast
Developer trust doesn’t come from big launches or perfect docs. It comes from being in the details, shipping what people ask for, and fixing things when they break. Sailhouse is built that way; in the loop, in the mess, and always improving.
- 4 July 2025
The Autonomous Software Revolution
Discover why workflow orchestrators are choking AI development and how event-driven autonomous agents can reshape the $50B market revolution.
June (2)
- 25 June 2025
The AI Boom Feels Like the Dotcom Era All Over Again
AI is not replacing engineers — it’s giving them new leverage. The builders who understand systems, tradeoffs, and reliability will shape this next wave. Here’s why this era is different, and why it’s time to build.
- 11 June 2025
Event Infrastructure for Modern Systems
AI-native apps generate 50x more events — but most teams are still relying on brittle, legacy infra. Here’s how to modernize your event backbone without breaking everything.
March (1)
- 28 March 2025
Building an Email Confirmation Flow with Sailhouse, Netlify, and Resend
A ready-to-deploy, event-driven email confirmation system built with Sailhouse, Netlify, and Resend that you can set up in minutes and customize to your needs.
2023
June (1)
- 30 June 2023
Taking Gatsby to New Heights: Embracing Adaptability and Openness
A blog post about Gatsby's new approach to framework development, focusing on increased flexibility and openness through the introduction of adapters.
2022
February (1)
- 14 February 2022
Doubling down on the ecosystem: open source and integrations
A blog post about Netlify's commitment to supporting open source projects and ecosystem integrations, focusing on sustainability and collaboration in web development.