Field notes
Expert opinions. Independent views.
Real experiences from operators building with AI in the SDLC, including what worked, what failed, and what changed. We freely give our content. Our only requirement is that you attribute it to here.
By Norman and Nathan — practitioners who build production software with AI agents.
All content reflects the personal opinions of its authors and does not represent any employer, client, or affiliated organization.
Articles
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Should You Take That Job or Should You Stay
Executive Deck ↗A comprehensive guide for developers weighing an offer, leaders trying to retain talent, and executives wondering why their best people keep leaving. The diagnostic that reveals…
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You Do Not Have Time for a Two-Hour Kickoff but You Have Time to Fail for a Year
Executive Deck ↗A VP told me his org only had 30 minutes for AI training. I recommended the two-hour kickoff that has consistently produced results. He said they…
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I Drove a Cactus Into a House in Marseille, France
Executive Deck ↗You keep buying the fastest tool on the market and wondering why nothing changed. The problem is not the vehicle. The problem is your streets were…
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Introducing Synthetic Users, Customers, and Personas
Executive Deck ↗A synthetic user is an LLM agent calibrated to a real reader persona that can navigate your product, read your copy, and tell you what is…
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Your Leaders Stopped Building. Now Vendors Own Your AI Strategy.
Executive Deck ↗Your technology leaders stopped building years ago. When AI arrived, vendors filled the vacuum. The fix is not better tools. It is rebuilding the technical leadership…
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The Tool Is a Commodity. The Organizational Adoption Expertise Is Not.
Executive Deck ↗Listen ↗The performance gap between top Gen AI coding tools is not what is slowing you down. Your governance model and your SDLC are. Pick the vendor…
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Gen 1 Lights-Off Development: I Am Building It and You Can Watch
Executive Deck ↗Listen ↗Everyone talks about autonomous AI development. Norman is actually building it. A system of agents that predicts what players want, builds a browser game, ships it,…
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How to Build an AI-Native Engineering Team (Not an AI-Assisted One)
Most teams added AI tools and called it transformation. An AI-native engineering team requires two things most organizations are not willing to change: the staffing model…
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We Kissed Specs and PRDs Goodbye. Product Managers Pass POCs Now.
Executive Deck ↗Nobody looks forward to backlog grooming. Nobody ever did. AI made it possible to skip the ceremony and hand engineering a working proof of concept instead…
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Stop Reviewing Code. Start Proving It Works. My Take on AI in the Quality Process of Software.
Executive Deck ↗Code review was supposed to be about rigor. It became a rubber stamp. AI review will not fix it. What fixes it is building systems that…
Essential or Ornamental
Three companies. Three choices. One satisfactory ending.
One does nothing. One maps the waste. One bets everything on twelve people in a warehouse.
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