Blog
Notes on engineering, AI and building software that ships.
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Async FastAPI, Measured
Everyone says async is faster. I finally ran the numbers.
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Testing FastAPI Without DB Mocks
Don't mock your database in tests.
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Pydantic + SQLAlchemy: The Real Stack
FastAPI gets the credit. Pydantic v2 and SQLAlchemy 2.0 do the heavy lifting.
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FastAPI in the Real World
FastAPI alone is a 30-line tutorial. What makes it a service is everything that wraps the framework.
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Three Sites One Admin One Postgres
Three sites, one Postgres, $8/month. That’s my Wagtail stack in production.
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Build vs buy your AI voice agent? It is the wrong question.
Tech leaders ask me a recurring question: should we buy an off-the-shelf IVR or contact-centre platform, or build a Gen-AI voice agent ourselves?
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The model choices that defined our voice agent
Following up on last week's post about the voice agent I shipped for two Pilates studios.
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I put a voice agent on the phone for a Pilates studio
A few weeks ago I shipped a voice agent that handles the phone for two Pilates studios — so the owners never had to hire a receptionist at all.
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After 15 years leading teams, I still commit every week. On purpose.
15 years ago I stopped being a full-time developer and started leading teams. 22 years into my career, I still push code every week.