Field Notes • 7 pieces

Wanderings

My place to babble and stammer about things I'm building or thinking about.

March 23, 2026

Why I Joined MongoDB

Building Tannin forced a simple decision: either spend my nights keeping three systems in sync, or keep the app honest and run it in one place.

App Building • Essay • 10 min read

March 16, 2026

Everybody Wanna Build Software

AI is lowering the cost of creating software much faster than it is lowering the cost of owning it. More companies will build custom tools. They still will not want to maintain everything.

AI Skilling • Essay • 23 min read

March 11, 2026

The Idea Guy Is Back

Code is not the barrier anymore. The real advantage is turning an idea into a system a coding tool can actually help you build.

AI Skilling • Interactive Essay • 17 min read

March 8, 2026

Building an SRE on a Mini PC

Aldo started as a continuity machine. Now it is becoming a local-first SRE that can watch my systems and remediate issues from a $250 mini PC.

Agent Building • Essay • 9 min read

February 26, 2026

The Reminder Isn't the Product

The easy part of a return reminder app is sending the reminder. The hard part is figuring out when the clock actually starts without building something creepy, brittle, or wrong.

App Building • Essay • 9 min read

February 23, 2026

The Voyage My Embedding Pipeline Made to Atlas

Building Tannin taught me that the cleanest AI stack is often the one that keeps storage, search, and embeddings as close together as possible.

App Building • Essay • 7 min read