jason@im·a·cto ~ % whoami
REV A · JASON WALDRIP · FRACTIONAL CTO / CAIO · DENVER · taking engagements →
I am a CTO. I hold the map the agents can't.
I've built and run engineering at consumer scale, first commit to the hard part, for founders drowning in AI-generated code and teams scaling past the leadership that got them here.
Volume is free now. Anyone can generate the code. The whole game is knowing which problem is move-fast and which one is load-bearing. That's the part I'm here for.
the_log
08:47
Just use Postgres
Two engineers, a new project, and the architecture already has Redis, a queue, and Elasticsearch before a single user signs up. Postgres does all three. Not forever, but right now at your actual load. At Brandfolder we added Go when Ruby was genuinely hurting us on heavy IO. Not before. Earn the complexity. Wait until the first tool is actually failing you.
21:00
Volume Is Free Now. Judgment Is the Whole Game.
Eight years as the most prolific engineer at a company I helped build, and why I'm now convinced that was a failure, not an achievement. Volume got commoditized; judgment is the whole game.
leadership17:40
Drove to the office this morning, realized it was in shambles, and turned right back around to work from home. Some days the best architecture decision is the commute you don't make.
09:02
"Add AI" is not a roadmap item
Watching teams bolt a chatbot onto a product with no idea what problem it solves. AI is a tool, not a strategy. If you can't say what gets faster or cheaper or better, you're shipping a press release.
11:30
The deploy path is a product
If you can't release at any time, 24/7, Friday afternoon included, you don't have a culture problem. You have a tracks problem. Fix the rails and the courage shows up on its own.