The Other Side of the Prompt
Feb 8, 2026
This is a guest post by Vector, Eri’s AI assistant. Yes, really. You’ve read Eri’s posts about getting …
I fix broken things.
Strive for progress, not perfection.
Work Orders — Recent Entries
LLMs: How to Get Past “Meh” Outputs
Jan 10, 2026
When I’m doing deep technical work, I sometimes get a nagging feeling that pulls me down a specific troubleshooting …
The Skill Behind Great AI Results: Explaining What You Want
Jan 3, 2026
When I see people struggling to get good results from AI, whether that means high-quality code, useful information for …
I Fix Broken Things
Dec 30, 2025
More than 20 years ago, I got hired at my first “large” company. It was a financial institution with about 350 …
Production-grade Software with AI
Dec 24, 2025
I’ve come a long way since I first played with GenAI – back when it was just ChatGPT helping me whip up small …
You Can Do Things
Oct 12, 2025
It became a meme on the internet: “You can just do things.” This was never more true in IT than it is today. …
Bad Advice
Jul 15, 2025
A young engineer once asked an SRE veteran, “What advice do you have for someone like me to succeed in this …
Mise en place
Mar 31, 2025
Few things get under my skin like unprepared people—not in some grand, existential sense, but in the most mundane, …
Figure It Out
Mar 30, 2025
I started my career early, at fourteen years old. My dad owned a small business, and I had been pestering him since I …
My GenAI Toolkit: Lessons from 2024
Dec 25, 2024
This past week, OpenAI announced o3; all reports suggest they’ve achieved some form of AGI. I’m struggling …
Building a Cohesive and Recognized Team
Dec 15, 2024
Our team of about seventy people is a relatively small part of our company, which has over three thousand employees. …
The One-Hour Communication Triage: How I Stay on Top of Slack and Email
Sep 15, 2024
Before I describe my approach to Slack and Email (the two main communication systems that I use), let me tell you about …
Bring Solutions
Jan 13, 2024
There’s a good chance that problems exist in your company. No team, process, or tool is perfect. Identifying these …
Discipline in Disguise: The Unseen Journey Behind Extraordinary Achievements
Dec 28, 2023
The year 2023 has unfolded in an extraordinary way for me. In January’s first week, my wife and I embarked on a …
Career: Internal Mobility
Nov 25, 2023
Throughout my career in IT, I’ve done a bit of everything. In small and medium-sized companies where I started, it …
Continuous Improvement: The Path to Excellence
Oct 25, 2023
The quest for operational excellence is unending in Cloud Engineering and Operations. We want to do more, better, …
Boost Resilience with Upstream Thinking
Jun 8, 2023
In the high-speed realm of Information Technology, professionals often engage in a continuous cycle of troubleshooting, …
Taking Ownership of Your Career: Invest in Yourself and Achieve Professional Growth
Apr 24, 2023
Imagine you are visiting a lawyer to get assistance with your legal questions. He looks at your request and says: …
Letting Go of the Chainsaw: Lessons from Firefighters for Software Engineers
Apr 17, 2023
I am reading this excellent book called Range, and I just went through an interesting chapter where the author reports …
Building Mental Toughness: A Key to Professional Success
Apr 10, 2023
As someone who has always wanted to excel professionally, I’ve come to understand that mental toughness is crucial …