Security Featured

PHP2Shell: Patching Without Panicking

There's a special kind of feeling you get when you read the words "unauthenticated remote code execution" next to the name of the language your whole platform is written in. It's not quite panic. It's more of a cold, slow "...oh.

Architecture

Moving Care Friends from Azure to Northflank

It’s Not You, Azure... Okay, It Was a Bit You I have a confession to make... The Care Friends portal has lived on Azure for years. It’s a Laravel app backed by MySQL, Redis and Horizon, running on App Service and a MySQL Flexible Server, and for a

Experiments Featured

Made with Flash (NOT!)

Do you remember Flash websites? I'm talking about the promotional websites for games. You'd type in the address, wait for the loading bar to crawl its way to 100%, and then...you didn't just land on a homepage. You went through something. A demonic

Mobile Development Featured

Should I Ditch React Native?

I have a confession to make. Even when I'm building the most simple of features, I'll sometimes spend an unreasonable amount of time trying to convince myself it's a good idea. And not just convince myself. I'll frame it like it'

Psychology

Technology is the shovel - Content is the hole

It's December 2013. Justine Sacco, a senior PR executive at IAC, is at Heathrow about to board an 11-hour flight to Cape Town. Right before she switches her phone to flight mode, she fires off one last tweet. It's meant to be a joke. It

Technology

Solutions for Made Up Problems

I don't know about you, but every now and again I see something new hit the market and my immediate reaction is one raised eyebrow and a slow "...why?" Not the "ooh that's clever" kind of why. The other one. The "

Software Architecture

Implementing a Feature Using Shadow Releases

In Part 1, I talked about the thinking. The constraints. The "what would perfect look like if we started fresh?" conversations. The deliberate decision to shadow-release customisable candidate progression so we could keep making forward progress without setting the platform on fire. This part is where the

AI Featured

AI Programming Partner (2023 vs 2026)

I was tidying up some of my old posts recently and found one titled "AI Programming Partner." Dated 2023. Never finished. Not even really started! Just a title and a scrappy list of bullet points I'd clearly meant to turn into something one day. Reading it

Fiction

The Dangers of Self-Replicating Automata

I've noticed a pattern in what I've been consuming lately. A run of sci-fi films on evenings when I want to relax. Dawkins back on the shelf again. Currently working through The Demon-Haunted World on Audible. None of it planned, but looking back, it&

Mental Health Featured

The Internal Struggles of a Software Engineer

There's a version of every developer that exists only in standups and sprint reviews. Tickets move across the board. Someone asks a question in Slack and gets an answer within the hour. From a distance, it all looks calm. Controlled, even. But that's rarely the whole

Software Architecture

Forward Progress with Shadow Releases

A Shadow Release is the ability to build functionality and deploy it without users knowing about it. There are several strategies that can be used to implement shadow releases, but the most common is feature flagging. This can be at the platform level, or more beneficially, on a segment of

Performance Featured

Are You Accidentally Killing Your Database?

Imagine you're building a simple admin portal feature—nothing too complex...just a page where internal staff can view notifications that have been sent out. The goal is to let them review what was sent, when it went out, and who received it. There's a Notification

Productivity

How I Stay Productive as a Software Engineer

People hear Head of Engineering and assume I've figured it all out. That I run efficient meetings, write clean code, and end each day with an empty inbox. The truth is, I'm still very much a software engineer. I still write features, debug weird bugs, and

AI

Are We Being Domesticated By AI?

It started with a YouTube video. One of those quiet, thoughtful conversations that unexpectedly sticks with you. I was watching Dave Farley and Kevlin Henney on the Modern Software Engineering channel, discussing the future of programming languages. The kind of discussion that, on the surface, seems rooted in syntax and

Self Reflection Featured

Time To Convince

There was a time—not too long ago—when I’d hear about a bug or a new feature and immediately crack my knuckles, spin up the IDE, and race toward a solution. That reactive energy felt productive. Urgent. Like I was doing what engineers are meant to do: solve

Random Thoughts Featured

An Engineer's Code Tells You A Lot About The Engineer

I was sitting at the back of a the MancJS meetup in Manchester last month, listening to Liam Walsh share a personal challenge: to prove—mostly to himself—that he was worthy of the title "senior developer". A great idea in theory. But also, let’s be honest,

AI Featured

What if AI tools disappeared?

There's an old quote from artist, Paul Cézanne: "It's so fine and yet so terrible to stand in front of a blank canvas." The same could be said for developers staring at an empty file. It's that moment of hesitation—where do

Agile Methodology

Estimate or Die

There’s one thing I can always count on from my old project manager friend: zero context. No "Hey, how's it going?" No "This reminded me of that one project we worked on." Just a random Instagram link, dropped into my DMs like a

Rust Featured

Rust - And The Joy Of Learning New Languages

Learning a new programming language is like stepping into an entirely new world—a world where I know nothing, where everything is unfamiliar, and every discovery brings a sense of accomplishment. It’s a thrilling place to be, full of opportunities to explore new paradigms and revisit old concepts from

Books

Books I Enjoyed in 2024

At the start of each year, I love reflecting on the books that have shaped my thoughts and experiences over the past twelve months. Last year, I shared my favorite reads in Books I Enjoyed in 2023, where I delved into topics like personal growth, business strategies, and storytelling. This

Random Thoughts

Weaponizing Astrology

“I don't believe in astrology; I'm a Sagittarius and we're skeptical.” — Arthur C. Clarke I’ve always found astrology fascinating—not because I believe the planets dictate our fate, but because of its sheer persistence in human culture. From ancient civilizations mapping the stars

Productivity

The Funny Truth About Why You’re Always Behind Schedule

Yak Shaving. The phrase alone is odd enough to make you pause, but once you’ve experienced it—and trust me, you have—you’ll never forget it. I first encountered the term while watching a talk by Aaron Patterson (a.k.a. tenderlove), who had the audience in stitches

System Design Featured

Why Every Developer Should Read Alex Xu's Guide to System Design

A few years ago, my daily work revolved around writing clean, functional code and occasionally dipping into discussions about deployment pipelines or minor infrastructure tweaks. It was a comfortable, predictable routine. But as my career advanced and the platforms I worked on began to grow in complexity and scale, I

Books Featured

Adversity to Innovation - The Three-Body Problem

Diving into The Three-Body Problem series by Cixin Liu opened my eyes to a riveting narrative oscillating between speculative fiction and stark realism. At its heart, the series isn't just a tale of extraterrestrial contact; it's a profound commentary on human resilience and innovation in

Software Engineering

Getting Familiar with Big O Notation

I've been watching quite a few mock code interviews lately (and reading Cracking the Coding Interview), and one topic that always comes up is Big O notation. Realizing its importance in discussions about algorithm efficiency—specifically regarding time and space complexity—I decided it was high time I