Field Notes
Opinions from the engagement, not from the conference circuit.
Short, opinionated essays on cloud architecture, production AI, and running serious technical programs. One diagram per essay. New posts every two to three weeks.
CloudOct 18, 2026Resolve it at build time
Every runtime dependency is a standing obligation to an API, a key, and a vendor's roadmap. Why we push everything we can into the build, and how we decide what earns a place at runtime.
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PracticeOct 18, 2026Release frequency is an economic decision
Code that is written but not shipped is inventory: paid for, depreciating, and earning nothing. Why we treat deploy frequency as a business lever rather than an engineering preference.
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CloudOct 18, 2026Access patterns first
Relational design starts from the data and lets the queries follow. DynamoDB inverts that, and teams that bring their SQL instincts with them build tables they later have to rebuild. How we design for the questions first.
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AISep 18, 2026Fixed costs pick winners
Compliance is a fixed cost, and fixed costs fall hardest on whoever has the least revenue to spread them across. What that means for open-weights models — and why substitutability is the only hedge a buyer actually controls.
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AISep 17, 2026Network unplugged
In legal, accounting, and medical work, the compliance answer that actually lands is architectural: the model runs on hardware with no route out. What holds up locally, what doesn't, and how to build the honest hybrid.
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AISep 16, 2026Route before you spend
Model selection is an architecture decision, not a default. Why we budget inference the way we budget cloud — and how routing work to the cheapest model that holds up changes the system you end up with.
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MethodJun 8, 2026Everything is code — even project management
A project-planning repo that sits alongside the code: ADRs, specs, tickets, transcripts, runbooks — all markdown, all in the IDE, all available to the AI working on the project.
Read note- InfrastructureJun 7, 2026
The pipeline lives in the repo it deploys
Self-mutating deploy pipelines: the pipeline that builds a product is defined inside that product's own repository, and it updates itself before it ships your code.
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ProgramsJun 6, 2026ADRs, not status decks
Running a multi-vendor government or enterprise program on architecture decision records and schedules built backwards from production cutover — instead of weekly status theater.
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PracticeJun 5, 2026Senior on every engagement
Why we don't subcontract senior hours through staffing intermediaries — and what changes when the architect who scoped the work is the one who ships it.
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AIJun 4, 2026The eval harness is the product
Production-grade AI is not a clever prompt. It's a system with evaluation, observability, caching, guardrails, and cost control designed in from day one.
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CloudJun 3, 2026Audits that don't gather dust
A well-architected review is only worth what gets acted on. Cost models built before code, security and migration findings written as work you can ship — not a PDF that sits.
Read note- CloudJun 2, 2026
Cost before code
Why we build the cost model before we write the stack — and how pricing as a design input quietly changes the architecture you end up with.
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PracticeJun 1, 2026What we say no to (and why saying no is the service)
Three gates every engagement passes before we take it: it has to be expressible as code, it has to reach production in the window, and it has to be in our domain.
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