Why I'm starting to write

There’s a line that stuck with me for years: don’t become a philosopher before you become rich.

I took it to mean this: until you’ve actually got somewhere, don’t hand out advice, and don’t expect anyone to follow you.

I’ve read plenty of posts, and had plenty of conversations, where someone explained how they’d figured it all out. Good for them. I just never wanted to be the one explaining before I had something to show for it.

I’m still not where I once thought I’d need to be before writing anything in public. So why start now?

What changed

Mostly, the way I work.

With AI tools, I’ve ended up doing a lot more than backend work: designing interfaces, writing, building whole things end to end. In the last two months, on the side, I built a library of computer-science courses for myself, and a journal app that slowly grew into a personal “life app”. Both started as small things I wanted. Both are private, so until now nobody could see them, or how they got built.

That’s the part I want to share. Not advice. Just the work.

What this is, and what it isn’t

I’ve been a backend engineer for four years: a year and a half at BNY Mellon, then the last three years building an AI email assistant. Most of what I’ve learned happened in the middle of building something, and I’ve written almost none of it down.

So this site is:

• Projects: what I built, how it changed, and why.
• Writing: my understanding of things, in my own words. Reflections, retros, thinking out loud. Sometimes wrong, and I’ll update it when I learn better.

It isn’t advice on how you should run your career. I still haven’t earned that.