// Collected insights

Field Notes

Pragmatic architectural observations, programming notes, and product development strategy compiled from the field. Most of it learned the hard way!

// Applied AI & R&D

On Messy Data

The pitch is that AI can shoulder most of the data cleanup, leaving structure as the real problem. The reality is that AI carries one layer of a stack of six, and the rest stays slow, contextual, and human. What AI fixes, what it cannot, and what to build instead.

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// Languages & execution

It's OCaml's Time

Quietly, in the background, a language long admired from a distance has been sharpening its blades. OCaml 5 closes the adoption gap with direct-style parallelism and algebraic effects.

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// Patterns & practice

On Doing Nothing

The case for unstructured idleness as a working discipline. Why boredom is the input most software, startup, and product work is starved of, and why blocks of it are a necessity rather than a luxury.

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// System architecture

The Postgres-first Architecture Spectrum

A practical map of backend architectural choices for Postgres-first systems. Eight flavours from DB-as-API to event sourcing, with the six axes that actually drive the choice: tenancy, async profile, streaming, concurrency, and the LLM-producer wrinkle baked in.

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// Patterns & practice

When Things Slow to a Crawl

Eleven recurring antipatterns that stop a software team's momentum, across architecture, product, planning, and culture. Field notes with the moves that help climb out.

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// Applied AI & R&D

The Confused Deputy Problem in Agent Systems

Prompt injection is the confused-deputy bug in modern dress. The architectural fix is older than the problem: authority travels with the request, narrowed at every hop, and decided by deterministic policy, not by the model.

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// System architecture

The Batting Stance: a 3-layer architecture for software products that expect to pivot

Three layers (SaaS chassis, engine, vertical) and two pivot points between them. The strategy that keeps the cost of swinging again bounded, for founders still in the search problem.

// Contact

Let's discuss your project

If you are looking for a reliable, competent, efficient Principal Architect or Engineer for scoped, delivery-focused contracting or advisory, reach out.

Waiheke Island, Auckland ยท Available for remote or CBD hybrid engagements