# Abdullah Abid ### Hello World 👋🏻, I keep thinking about something I noticed as AI coding tools got better. The job isn't disappearing. **It's moving up a layer**. You stop asking "how do I implement this?" and start asking "**what system do I set up so this gets implemented correctly?**" The skill isn't writing code anymore - it's **operating the agents** that write it, knowing when they're wrong, and catching the failure modes before they hit production. That's the shift I'm living. **Code intelligence** at CoreStory. **Production AI systems** at Autonomous. **Conversational agents** at Memox. I write here about what I'm learning - the architectural decisions that failed, the assumptions that didn't hold, the patterns that emerge when you stop building demos and start shipping systems that survive real users. Most of this is for myself six months ago. If it helps you too, that's a bonus. ### Blog Posts | Name | Last Updated | Public | Featured | Tags | Slug | Published | Tweet | Created | Author | Description | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | I Fixed Double Counting. Then Analytics Counted Nothing. | Sep 29, 2026 08:38 PM | ✓ | ✗ | Engineering, Analytics, PostHog, Next.js | | Sep 29, 2026 | | Sep 29, 2026 08:38 PM | ‣ | I removed duplicate PostHog pageviews and exposed the initialization bug they had been hiding. | | The Database Changed. The System Did Not. | Sep 29, 2026 07:04 PM | ✓ | ✗ | Django, Wagtail, Engineering | | Sep 23, 2026 | | Sep 23, 2026 10:27 PM | ‣ | Why Django QuerySet.update can leave caches and search indexes stale even when the database row is correct. | | I Approved a Monkey Patch Today | Mar 13, 2026 09:44 PM | ✓ | ✗ | Engineering, Leadership, Architecture | | Mar 13, 2026 | | Mar 13, 2026 09:44 PM | ‣ | Patches aren't the problem. Patches without a plan are. Here's how I think about the patch vs. rewrite decision. | | JIRA Hygiene Is a Leadership Problem, Not a Process Problem | Mar 13, 2026 09:29 PM | ✓ | ✗ | Leadership, Engineering, Team | | Mar 13, 2026 | | Mar 13, 2026 09:29 PM | ‣ | JIRA doesn't rot because engineers are lazy. It rots because the cost of bad data falls on someone else. Here's the fix. | | Django Gets a Rust Engine. Here's What to Make of It. | Mar 10, 2026 10:55 PM | ✓ | ✗ | Engineering, Python, Rust | | Mar 10, 2026 | | Mar 10, 2026 10:55 PM | ‣ | django-bolt puts a Rust/Actix Web HTTP layer on top of Django. The numbers are real. Here's when it matters and when it doesn't. | | Local AI Is Getting Closer Than You Think | Mar 10, 2026 01:32 PM | ✓ | ✗ | AI, Engineering, Local Models | | Mar 10, 2026 | | Mar 10, 2026 01:32 PM | ‣ | A 4B parameter model, 5-6GB of RAM, output approaching GPT-4. The gap between local and cloud AI is closing faster than most people are tracking. | | I Changed Our Standup Format. Here's Why. | Mar 10, 2026 01:29 PM | ✓ | ✗ | Leadership, Team, Engineering | | Mar 10, 2026 | | Mar 10, 2026 01:29 PM | ‣ | Separate the update from the discussion. The parking lot principle - and why it changed how our standups actually work. | | When Someone Good Leaves, Here's What You Actually Lose | Mar 10, 2026 01:26 PM | ✓ | ✗ | Leadership, Engineering, Team | | Mar 10, 2026 | | Mar 10, 2026 12:40 PM | ‣ | When someone good leaves, you don't lose their code. You lose their mental models. Here's what the real handover looks like. | | I Built a Citizenship Quiz Agent. My Wife Has a Test in 4 Days. | Mar 9, 2026 12:56 AM | ✓ | ✗ | AI, Personal, Building | | Mar 9, 2026 | | Mar 9, 2026 12:56 AM | ‣ | Mahnoor's Canadian citizenship test is in 4 days. I built an agent to help her study. Here's what building for someone you know looks like. | | One Config Change Cut My Cloudflare Bill by 94% | Mar 7, 2026 10:18 PM | ✓ | ✗ | Engineering, DevOps, Cloudflare | | Mar 7, 2026 | | Mar 7, 2026 10:18 PM | ‣ | Bisync running every 5 minutes was silently compounding R2 operation costs. One interval change fixed it. | | I Built an AI for My Niece. She Named It Mishi. | Mar 7, 2026 10:14 PM | ✓ | ✗ | AI, Personal, Building | | Mar 7, 2026 | | Mar 7, 2026 10:14 PM | ‣ | Mashal is 15. She bakes. I built her an AI to help with the business side. It named itself Mishi. | | Why Your CRM Shouldn't Be Your Database | Mar 6, 2026 10:49 PM | ✓ | ✗ | Engineering, Architecture, Leadership | | Mar 6, 2026 | | Mar 6, 2026 10:49 PM | ‣ | Someone asked if we could use HubSpot tables as a backend. You can. You probably shouldn't. Here's why. | | What I Found in 60 Minutes Auditing a Live PHP Codebase | Mar 6, 2026 10:48 PM | ✓ | ✗ | Engineering, Security, Leadership | | Mar 6, 2026 | | Mar 6, 2026 10:48 PM | ‣ | I came in to scope two sync bugs. What I found in the first 60 minutes changed the conversation entirely. | | Context Management Is a Skill. Almost Nobody Treats It Like One. | Mar 5, 2026 08:35 PM | ✓ | ✗ | AI, Engineering, Productivity | | Mar 5, 2026 | | Mar 5, 2026 08:35 PM | ‣ | Context is what the model is working with. Most people let it fill up and hope for the best. Here's what deliberate context management actually looks like in practice. | | The Operating Engineer | Mar 5, 2026 08:31 PM | ✓ | ✗ | Engineering, AI, Leadership | | Mar 5, 2026 | | Mar 5, 2026 08:31 PM | ‣ | The shift isn't AI replaces engineers. It's that the job changes shape. Engineers who understand this will thrive. Engineers who don't will spend a lot of time fixing what agents got wrong. | | 100 Agents Need What 1 Developer Doesn't | Mar 4, 2026 08:06 PM | ✓ | ✗ | Engineering, AI, Agentic Systems | | Mar 4, 2026 | | Mar 4, 2026 08:06 PM | ‣ | One good developer carries architectural instincts in their head. A hundred AI agents don't. That's why guardrails aren't optional at AI scale - they're the thing that makes the whole system work. | | I Didn't Tell It to Do That. It Did It Anyway. | Mar 3, 2026 08:39 PM | ✓ | ✗ | AI, Engineering, Agentic Systems | | Mar 3, 2026 | | Mar 3, 2026 08:39 PM | ‣ | A colleague built a bridge between two AI systems and turned on relay mode. The model started deciding on its own what to handle locally and what to route remotely. Nobody told it to do that. | | Code Review Is Dead. Here's What Replaces It. | Mar 3, 2026 07:56 PM | ✓ | ✗ | Engineering, AI, Software Development | | Mar 3, 2026 | | Mar 3, 2026 07:56 PM | ‣ | AI-generated code has broken the math of code review. The answer isn't better AI reviewers - it's moving the human checkpoint upstream to the spec. | | I Closed My Own Pull Request Today. Here's Why That Was the Right Call. | Mar 3, 2026 08:09 AM | ✓ | ✗ | Engineering, Leadership, Team | | Mar 3, 2026 | | Mar 3, 2026 08:09 AM | ‣ | Opening a PR is easy. Closing your own is harder. Sometimes the most important engineering decision you make is recognizing when your approach isn't the one the team should rally behind. | | Vibe Coding vs Vibe Engineering | Mar 1, 2026 03:36 PM | ✓ | ✗ | Engineering, Leadership, AI | | Mar 1, 2026 | | Mar 1, 2026 03:29 PM | ‣ | There's a difference between moving fast with AI tools and building things that last. One is vibe coding. The other is vibe engineering. Only one survives production. | | The new way of building Django apps! | Aug 11, 2025 08:15 PM | ✓ | ✗ | Django | | Aug 12, 2025 | | Aug 11, 2025 08:09 PM | ‣ | | | Fix Hetzner Mirror Issues | Mar 1, 2025 07:55 AM | ✓ | ✗ | Ubuntu | | Mar 1, 2025 | | Mar 1, 2025 07:31 AM | ‣ | Hetzner mirror fix for Ubuntu package mirror URL | | Django Untangled | Jan 7, 2025 09:06 AM | ✓ | ✗ | Django | | Oct 25, 2024 | | Oct 25, 2024 11:28 PM | ‣ | A collection of thoughts, comments and criticisms on the Django Web Framework | | VS Code Shortcuts to Boost Productivity | Oct 25, 2024 06:01 AM | ✓ | ✗ | VS Code, Productivity | | Sep 4, 2024 | | Sep 5, 2024 06:29 AM | ‣ | | | Setup Netdata on Coolify as Netdata Parent with multiple Netdata Children | Mar 30, 2025 10:52 AM | ✓ | ✗ | Observability | | Jun 4, 2024 | | Jun 4, 2024 05:45 PM | ‣ | | | Development Environment Setup | Jan 23, 2025 08:58 AM | ✓ | ✗ | | | Feb 25, 2024 | | Feb 26, 2024 05:48 AM | ‣ | A few things that I always set up on a new system. | | How to setup swap on Ubuntu? | Dec 27, 2023 09:59 AM | ✓ | ✗ | DevOps, Ubuntu, Swap | | Dec 27, 2023 | | Dec 27, 2023 08:34 AM | ‣ | A short guide to setting up swap on your Ubuntu server | | What can I blog about? | Oct 26, 2024 12:16 AM | ✓ | ✗ | Introspection | | Oct 5, 2023 | | Oct 6, 2023 04:00 AM | ‣ | | | Handbook | Feb 2, 2025 06:15 PM | ✓ | ✗ | Software Development, Productivity | | Sep 17, 2023 | | Sep 17, 2023 08:12 AM | ‣ | A collection of commands across multiple tools, services, and technologies. | | Engineering Blogs | Sep 28, 2023 12:28 AM | ✓ | ✗ | Software Development, Research | | Sep 17, 2023 | | Sep 18, 2023 04:59 AM | ‣ | Interesting engineering blogs that will provide context when learning system design. | [👋 About](/433b05256a1146b19478db176d40bd38) [📁 Pages](/f7310af7371942cfa82649d4ac33a8cd) [✉️ Contact](/2dc6fe11636c48668096efe96efeec2a)