AI Agent Engineering Notes

Practical guides to AI agents, agentic systems, and AI-native software engineering

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A practical path into agent engineering, from foundations to system design and engineering leadership.

  1. Optimize Units of Work, Not Growth TargetsGrowth becomes more actionable when leaders stop treating it as a target and start removing friction from the individual units of work that create it.
Build AI agentsArchitecture, evaluation, memory, orchestration, and reliability. Lead engineering systemsDecision-making, flow, team design, and sustainable delivery.
21 Oct 2025

Make Trade-offs Explicit as a Clarity Multiplier

The most powerful thing you can do as an engineering manager isn't making better decisions—it's making the trade-offs b...
20 Oct 2025

Engineer the Handoffs Where Most Productivity Dies

Most engineering managers optimize for individual productivity. They focus on hiring great people, improving code quali...
19 Oct 2025

Invest in Compounding Leverage

The difference between good engineering managers and exceptional ones isn't how much they do—it's how much compounds ov...
18 Oct 2025

Build Conviction Through Small Bets

The best engineering managers don't make big decisions through perfect analysis—they build conviction through strategic...
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

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

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...
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...
11 Oct 2025

Lead with Leading Indicators to Predict Problems Before They Happen

Most engineering managers are firefighters. They react to outages, missed deadlines, and team burnout after the damage ...