Field Notes // Guides

Guides for the hard decisions.

Practical, opinionated writing on the engineering calls that compound — modernization, AI readiness, and build-vs-buy — from an engineer who has made them at scale.

Guide // Public Sector

Modernizing Legacy Government Systems Without the Big-Bang Rewrite

How state and local agencies can retire COBOL and VB6 systems incrementally — using the strangler pattern, parallel runs, and accessibility-first delivery — without a year-long discovery phase or a risky cutover.

7 min readRead

Guide // AI Automation

Is Your Enterprise Ready for Production AI Agents?

A practical readiness check for enterprises: how to tell whether an AI agent will survive production, what an eval harness is, and when to build versus buy.

6 min readRead

Guide // Internal Tools

Build vs. Buy: When a Custom Internal Tool Is Worth It

A decision framework for choosing between off-the-shelf SaaS and a custom internal tool — based on workflow fit, integration cost, and how core the process is to your business.

6 min readRead