Notes from production.
Shipping AI features, scaling React apps, and the small lessons that didn't fit anywhere else.
When plain React is the better choice over Next.js
Next.js is the default answer for React projects, yet many mature products still run on plain React. What I learned from both sides, and the one question I now ask before picking.
Your database is two databases now, and one is behind
A read replica is a second database that replays the first one's change log. Setting one up takes an afternoon. Using one correctly means deciding, query by query, which answers are allowed to be a second out of date.
Hard work can take you anywhere in life
From a tier 3 college where implementing a stack was a great day, to shipping AI features end to end. Nothing about me changed except the hours I put in.
Teach yourself Everything: the Art of Self-Learning
Nobody tells you when the teaching stops. At a product company no one explains the codebase, no one hands you knowledge, and everything that actually moves your career is work nobody assigned you.
The best code I write makes itself disappear
Nobody should have to learn how the machine works just to flip a switch. This is why I build the boring helpers nobody notices, and why it's the work that matters most.
How scaled products actually deploy frontend and backend
Deploying looks simple until real users and real money are on the line. Here is how big products really deploy their frontend and backend, and why one small git tag sits at the centre of it all.