Engineering

TL;DR: I recently undertook a project that terrifies most engineers: rewriting a massive, critical infrastructure automation tool from scratch. I moved from legacy Bash to Python without writing a single line of manual code - relying entirely on AI agents. Here is how I managed the risk, the architecture, and the “memory loss” of LLMs to build a production-grade tool. The Stakes This wasn’t a simple CRUD app. This tool manages infrastructure for multiple teams. A logic error here doesn’t just throw a stack trace; it could wipe an entire environment or cause immediate customer impact. ...

Stop Handing Out Tools. Start Growing Engineers I’ve seen this happen too many times. A new project kicks off, and the team hears: “Here’s the tool. Here’s the plan. Just deploy.” It feels efficient. But it skips the most important step: exploration. When engineers are told what to use, they don’t learn why . They never see how others solve the same problem. They miss the chance to break, test, and truly understand. And over time, they stay stuck—good executors, but not real decision-makers. ...