Engineering Notes

Engineering Notes

Thoughts and Ideas on AI by Muthukrishnan
17 Oct 2025

Collaborative Problem-Solving in Multi-Agent Systems with the Blackboard Architecture

Explore how the blackboard pattern enables multiple specialized agents to work together on complex problems through shared knowledge spaces and opportunistic reasoning.
17 Oct 2025

Scale Culture Through Defaults, Not Rules

Most engineering managers try to scale culture through policies, rules, and guidelines. They write extensive playbooks,...
16 Oct 2025

Goal-Oriented Action Planning for Dynamic Problem Solving in Adaptive Agents

Discover how Goal-Oriented Action Planning (GOAP) enables AI agents to dynamically create flexible plans that adapt to changing conditions, from game NPCs to modern autonomous systems.
16 Oct 2025

Manage Your Attention Budget as Your Scarcest Resource

You can always hire more engineers. You can negotiate for a bigger budget. You can even extend deadlines. But you cann...
14 Oct 2025

Auction-Based Task Allocation in Multi-Agent Systems

Learn how auction mechanisms from economics power efficient task distribution in multi-agent systems, from robot swarms to cloud computing.
14 Oct 2025

Design Your Feedback Loops

The difference between a mediocre engineering organization and an exceptional one often comes down to a single variable...
13 Oct 2025

Hire for Trajectory, Not Just Skills

Most engineering managers hire for what candidates can do today. Great engineering managers hire for where candidates w...
13 Oct 2025

Minimax and Adversarial Search for Decision-Making in Competitive Environments

Master the minimax algorithm and adversarial search - the foundation of game-playing AI agents and competitive decision-making systems.
12 Oct 2025

Building Stateful AI Systems with LangGraph and Agentic Workflow Graphs

Learn how to build complex, stateful AI agent systems using graph-based architectures with LangGraph—a paradigm shift from linear chains to cyclic, controllable workflows.
12 Oct 2025

How Great EMs Shape Reality Through Storytelling

The best engineering managers understand a powerful truth: **the story you tell about your team's work often matters mo...