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What Modernizing Legacy Analytics Code Taught Me About Production Safety
Introduction — Why This Was Worth Writing About Recently, I worked on modernizing a legacy Google Universal Analytics event-tracking system in production. On the surface, it looked like a straightforward refactor: remove jQuery, introduce TypeScript, and clean up the architecture. In reality, it was one of the higher-risk changes you can make in a mature
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How to Break Into Tech in 2025: Real Advice I Gave a First-Time Engineer
Introduction Recently, a junior engineer reached out to me on LinkedIn asking for advice on how to land their first job in tech. It wasn’t a flashy question. No shortcuts. No “what’s the fastest way to get hired?” energy. Just an honest message from someone early in their journey—learning full-stack development, exploring AI, and trying
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What Building a Small AI App Taught Me About Fundamentals
I recently finished building a small AI-powered translation app called PollyGlot. The project came from Scrimba’s AI Engineer Path as a breakout challenge. We were given a Figma file, design assets, and a clear goal: build a working AI application. What made this project interesting wasn’t just the AI — it was the constraints. The
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How I Learned to Take Ownership Without a Safety Net
There’s a version of engineering growth that gets talked about a lot: promotions, new titles, well-scoped projects with clear ownership and strong support. And then there’s the version that actually shapes you. This post is about the second one. It’s about what it feels like to take ownership of a production issue when the deadline
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How a Simple S3 Access Request Turned Into a DevOps Learning Opportunity
Sometimes growth doesn’t come from a planned project.It comes from a small, practical need that exposes a much bigger system. This started with a debugging task. I was working on an issue involving static page articles that were being served from an S3 bucket. To properly investigate the problem, I needed direct access to the
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Bringing Value to a Team Without Being Asked
One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned as an engineer is that impact isn’t limited to being “on call” or officially assigned to a problem. Sometimes, the biggest contributions come from noticing when help is needed—and stepping in without being asked. Recently, a teammate was handling a production issue during a rotation shift. The
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Two Pointers, Palindromes, and Pair Programming with AI: How I Use LeetCode and ChatGPT to Level Up
“AI isn’t a cheat code. It’s a mirror, a mentor, a sparring partner. But I still have to do the reps.” LeetCode is more than just a platform to prep for interviews—it’s my personal gym for becoming a better engineer. Every coding challenge is a sparring match. And lately, I’ve been bringing in a tough—but
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The Developer Growth Hack You’re Probably Ignoring: Side Projects
I broke into tech about 3 years ago. I changed careers from doing something different than Software Development. I attended a boot camp to learn how to code and become a competent hiring prospect. After the boot camp was over, I found myself looking for my first role. It was tough trying to find a
