Field Notes
Things I've encountered, thought through, and written about. Not tutorials — real problems, real trade-offs, real tools. Each post links out to LinkedIn where the conversation lives.
Running AWS locally with LocalStack
Discovered the AWS Toolkit and LocalStack — run S3, SQS, and IAM locally via WSL2 + Docker Desktop. Eliminates credential expiry during development entirely.
Reversing the psychology of push notifications
After building push notification systems professionally, I stopped ignoring them and started reading them as a developer — spotting event triggers, location logic, and cron-based behavioural patterns.
Choosing different ORMs for different services
Prisma shines on long-running Express servers — connection pooling, type safety, migrations. The raw pg library is better for Lambda — minimal bundle, explicit control. The execution environment drives the choice, not preference.
The debugging mindset — before AI made everything a search
Good debugging is medical diagnosis: find the root cause, don't treat symptoms. Staying mentally calm under pressure matters more than keyboard speed.
GitHub pipeline failed — so I deployed manually
When CI broke, I replicated the entire deploy by hand: npm install, build, Prisma generate, SSH, SCP, PM2. Understanding the underlying infra is what made it possible.
Debugging microfrontends across two teams
Two teams, identical feature, completely different approaches: manual useState vs React Hook Form + Yup. Neither was wrong. Seeing both made me a better engineer.
Early career lessons: wearing two hats
Being onboarded by the testing team alongside development permanently changed how I think. Edge cases and bug ownership became instinct, not afterthought.
TypeScript in the AI era — do you still need it?
AI removes the need to memorise advanced TypeScript. But you still need enough understanding to review what AI generates — spot circular references, hallucinated types, and contextually wrong implementations.
What I learned from observing PRs — ownership over speed
AI tools accelerate coding but don't understand *why* code works. Self-reviewing before every PR submission is how you stay the author, not just the typist.
Learning Prisma and PostgreSQL with a safety net
I wrote Python wrapper scripts around pg_dump and pg_restore to clone production databases locally. Lets me run real migrations against real data without touching prod.
Trying something new — actually posting on LinkedIn
First post. Decided to start writing about what I actually encounter as an engineer — not tutorials, not hot takes. Real problems, real tools, real trade-offs.
// note Started posting in Jan 2025. More coming. Follow on LinkedIn to catch them live.