Field Note
Shift Down, Not Left
Shift left moved the work earlier and dumped it on developers. Shift down moves the complexity into the platform, so they never have to carry it at all.
Field Notes
Essays and commentary from the edge of the map.
Writing on architecture, AI, and transformation, and the judgment required when systems stop behaving as expected.
Latest Field Notes
Field Note
Loop Engineering Needs a Platform
Loop engineering pays off when a platform's contracts, tests, and policy checks decide whether an agent's loop is actually done.
Field Note
The Rise of the Agent-Native Developer Platform
For thirty years we built developer platforms for developers. The next ones are built for the agents developers delegate to.
Field Note
Golden Paths for Machines
A golden path built for humans is a recommendation. A golden path built for a machine has to be an interface.
Field Note
Internal Platforms need product managers, not priests
A platform team that rules by doctrine gets compliance. A platform team that runs like a product gets adoption. Only one of those is worth anything.
Field Note
The Platform Team as an Economic Function
A platform team is not a cost centre. It changes the marginal cost of safe change, and that is an economic argument, not a tooling one.
Field Note
Tiny teams, heavy systems
AI will make some teams smaller. It will not make the work lighter.
Field Note
The death of vibe coding will be boring
The next phase of AI-assisted engineering will not be more magical. It will be more explicit.
Field Note
Agentic engineering
Agentic engineering is the discipline of making software work explicit enough that machines can safely help with it.
Field Note
How to evaluate platform engineering value
Platform engineering value comes from reducing organizational friction, lowering the marginal cost of safe change, and making delivery evidence visible.
Field Note
The Human in the loop is not a strategy
Human oversight in AI systems must be designed as a control capability, not treated as a reassuring box at the end of a workflow.
Field Note
When the consumer is a machine
Event contracts used to be guidance. With agents on the other end, they're the thing the system actually runs on.
Field Note
Batch vs Streaming is the Wrong Data Architecture Question
The real architectural decision isn't how fast you process data. It's what you choose to treat as a fact, and whether the machines around it can reason about those facts without asking permission.
Field Note
Why the modern Data Platform is becoming an Operating System
Modern data platforms are becoming operating systems for decisions, automation, governance, and the flow of organizational work.
Field Note
AI development & Engineering clarity
AI-assisted development rewards engineering clarity because faster execution amplifies the quality, ambiguity, and governance of the system around it.
Field Note
Alfred does its homework before writing a line of code
Alfred shows why agentic engineering starts before code: tickets need enough context, constraints, and evidence for machines to help safely.
Field Note
Technical Value Assurance: The Missing Function in Enterprise Engineering
Technical value assurance closes the gap between delivery and business impact by making value, risk, evidence, and ownership visible.
Field Note
I Let an AI Agent Read My Jira Tickets Before Reviewing PRs
AI-assisted PR review only works when agents can bring issue context, implementation evidence, and review intent into the same engineering surface.
Field Note
Custom domain handles on Bluesky (with Terraform!)
A Terraform-backed Bluesky handle turns social identity into a small infrastructure problem: explicit DNS, owned naming, and portable presence.