Chris Oliver: Engineering, management and AI.
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Why Are We Still Using REST Inside the Data Centre?
(Is it time to learn gRPC?) I love REST, I think in REST. Truly. It’s been the reliable workhorse of web development for two decades. Simple URLs, JSON payloads you can read in Notepad, and an army of Stack Overflow answers at your fingertips. REST won the web and for good reason. But inside a…
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Management changed and you didn’t notice.
I recently went down a rabbit hole about a two Michelin-starred restaurant in rural Wales. What struck me most wasn’t the food (it’s probably good), but the head chef’s management style. Instead of the old-school tyranny you’d expect the Marco Pierre White scowl or Gordon Ramsay fireworks this leader leaned into empathy, clarity, and open…
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Quality Is the New Speed – A Manifesto for Engineering in an AI world
For years I’ve held up my hands like I’m describing the size of a fish I caught once (never been fishing but that is not your bee’s wax), showing the range of software quality. On one end: move fast and break things. On the other: quality is non-negotiable. Most of us have spent our careers…
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Pressure Good, Stress Bad
There’s a difference between pressure and stress. They often get muddled together, especially in work chats where everyone’s “under pressure” or “stressed out.” But they’re not the same thing and if accept that and accept people handle pressure in different ways, we can recognise the difference and react accordingly. Pressure is even. Stress is focused.…
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Flying Blind: Why Your Retrospectives Need a Black Box
I don’t like recommending things. Not movies. Not restaurants. Not even a decent bottle of red. Why? Because what if you don’t like it? What if you watch it, eat it, drink it and go, “Aye… that was rubbish, actually.” Then I’m the clown who mugged you off. And I’ll carry that shame for years.…
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Yours Apps Are Too Thirsty: Stop Selling, Start Serving
This blog was supposed to be a highbrow think piece about technology and how it is the most exciting it has been in ages. Using some of your apps has turned me into a rage-typing Karen. I have paid the money, maybe it’s my fault for expecting a premium experience but the constant upsell and…
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Lit Still Feels Like the Future of Frontend
<loud>I am a full stack engineer</loud> I don’t care who hears that, I full stack and I proud. As half of you shrug with a “so what, everyone is full stack” and the other half scoff that I cannot be good at either if I claim to both. As you, dear reader know, I have…
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Coding 2 – back in the habit: Rediscovering Engineering with a Little Help from AI
After a few years of steering teams and scaling people, I’m finding my way back to writing code. I mean I never stopped but now computers can do it for me. Lets go! I’ve spent the last chapter of my career leading engineering teams – hiring, mentoring, planning, firefighting, celebrating. All the while I have…