Technical Writing

Case studies and notes on scaling, observability, and operating real systems in production.

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May 25, 2026 10 min read

AI Built the Dashboard. I Had to Make It Scale.

Cursor scaffolded Sentinel's observability dashboard in minutes, but the AI-generated code couldn't keep up once PostgreSQL started accumulating 20,000 health-check rows a day. This is the story of turning a working v1 into something that could actually scale.

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Apr 14, 2026 6 min read

How I Built a Zero-Maintenance Content Platform for a Non-Technical User

When my dad asked me to build a site where he could publish Bible studies and schedule content himself, the hard part wasn't the design. It was building something that would keep working without me.

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Feb 9, 2026 12 min read

The Limits of LLMs: Shipping Software Without Outsourcing Judgment

LLMs are great at plausible solutions, but engineers still own assumptions, trade-offs, and failure modes.

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Oct 1, 2025 8 min read

What Are CTEs (and When Not to Use Them)

CTEs: your best friend in complex queries… until they're not.

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Sep 26, 2025 8 min read

Why I Reached for DuckDB Instead of Spinning Up a Database

DuckDB flips the analytics workflow on its head. Instead of spinning up PostgreSQL instances and migrating data, you can query files directly and get insights in minutes, perfect for prototyping and side projects.

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Sep 21, 2025 6 min read

Keeping Your SQL Skills Sharp: How to Get Databases Fast

Want to practice SQL without wasting time on fake data? Here's how to spin up real sample databases in PostgreSQL and build your query-writing fluency.

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Sep 17, 2025 8 min read

Building High-Performance, Client-Editable Sites Without Compromise

Most small business sites are either slow WordPress installs or rigid headless CMS builds. I wanted something fast, editable, and modern, so I built it with Astro + Contentful.

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Apr 25, 2025 7 min read

The MVP Industrial Complex and Why I Keep Falling for It

You can ship a full-stack app with auth and CRUD in a day. Cool story, bro. But moving fast isn't the same as moving well. Here's why knowing when to sprint and when to architect makes the difference between 'I launched' and 'I lasted.'

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