Why now?
Here I am, a dozen years deep into my career in software, and I’ve decided to start a blog.
But why? Why start a software engineering blog in 2026?
The truth is, I’m asking myself that question too.
I feel internally compelled to, without having the ability to fully articulate all my motivations. This being the inaugural post of the blog, I’m going to reflect and process what I can sense.
Reflection has led me to multiple factors converging at once:
1. Stage of Life
Simply put, I’m in a season of life with margin to spend time and energy writing.
My kids have gotten older and more self-sufficient, which is freeing up a non-trivial amount of my time. No more sleepless nights, feeding them each bite by hand, changing diapers, dressing them, keeping a constant eye on them, etc. Now they sleep like rocks, pour their own cereal, use toilets, play together, and put on their own shoes! Don’t get me wrong, our household has a busy schedule! Besides school the kids are in soccer, basketball, ballet, swimming, summer camps–the works. My wife and I also tend to maximize family time on the weekends (the ability to do that is an incredible luxury I often take for granted).
Although our household schedule is not wanting, it’s generally structured, making free time predictable. I love predictable schedules. They’re fertile ground for designing consistent habits that create rewarding results over time.
2. Stage of Career
This is going to sound like gloating, and I hope it can be read more charitably, but here it goes:
I have achieved an aspirational level of success in my software career, and I believe there are people who would benefit from my thoughts and experience.
Blogging is a pretty common practice among developers of all experience levels, and I do believe you can deliver value in a blog even as a junior level engineer. But a harsh reality is that a lot of these blogs are trash. This was true even before AI-generated slop cannons began to fire.
My old boss, Scott Meves, once said:
There are millions of bad software developers out there, and they all have blogs!
After more than a dozen years of dedication to the craft, I’ve gathered enough hubris to believe my skill, knowledge, and experience are worth sharing.
3. Moment in History
In November of 2025 Anthropic released Opus 4.5. I had previously tried Claude Code and enjoyed it, but its quality and overall ability to accomplish non-trivial tasks were limited. That December, I tried Opus 4.5 with Claude Code and it felt different. This combination of model and harness was a clear inflection point in the history of software. It’s been a hell of a ride since then and it’s a truly exciting time to be in software.
At the risk of overly aggrandizing this change in the technology landscape, and the position of experienced developers like myself:
Experienced engineers who understand the fundamentals of software and computing, and have experience building and maintaining systems pre-Opus 4.5, should share their perspective as we all discover the possibilities that lie ahead.
4. Personal Artifacts
Another motivation for blogging is that 99% of my work is committed in repositories. I’m proud of the things I’ve built (some Planning Center features I’ve made are used by millions of people), but they aren’t mine. Only paying customers can see the end results, and only co-workers can see the code (…sometimes I’m grateful for that 😄).
Writing is a way I can share my work with the world.
5. Personal Growth
Lastly, I want to get better at writing. I believe the skill of writing will become more (not less) important in the Agentic AI era (or whatever we’re calling it). My own personal growth and trajectory towards excellence is an intrinsic motivation as well. And the only way I’m going to get better at writing is by doing it consistently.
So here we go.