Principal SWE Manager · Microsoft Cloud + AI
Twenty-five years building software, leading teams, and shipping product — from AOL and Microsoft's first .NET era to founding Alekto and leading the blockchain practice at Smashing Boxes. Now back at Microsoft, writing about how engineering fundamentals become more essential, not less, as agents enter the loop.
Apex, NC
Now Writing
Coding agents ship code faster than any human ever has — but without careful guidance, they make codebases worse. The discipline that wins isn't typing speed; it's the ability to specify intent precisely enough that an agent can act on it. This is the opening article in a series on what that practice actually looks like.
What I Work On
01 / Intent Engineering
Behavior-driven development, Gherkin, contract-first thinking, and the disciplines that make AI-generated code worth keeping. The current writing focus.
02 / Strategy & Architecture
Microsoft Enterprise Strategy, founding and running Alekto, leading the blockchain practice at Smashing Boxes, MIT Sloan executive education in platform strategy and design thinking.
03 / Blockchain & Sovereignty
Long-running interest in financial sovereignty, non-custodial wallets, and the cultural side of crypto. Documented on the Block Boys YouTube channel.
Code isn't cheap. Bad code is the most expensive it has ever been. The teams who win this era will be the ones who can specify intent well enough that their agents can be trusted with the keyboard.
Selected Writing
How a personal experience with credit reporting errors led to founding Alekto — and what the lean-startup grind actually looks like from the inside.
On why platform abstraction is the durable bet — written in 2009, when "cloud" still meant something specific. The argument has aged better than expected.
Risk management for software architects working with offshore teams. The principles — contracts, fidelity, governance — apply directly to AI agents now.
A fifteen-year-old argument for design-by-contract that turns out to be exactly the right primitive for working with coding agents.
On a quiet form of consumer banking risk and why non-custodial wallets exist. One of the foundational pieces behind the Block Boys channel.
Financial-literacy education and blockchain explainers. Why depositing money makes you an unsecured creditor, and what to do about it.