Articles
Articles
Engineering write-ups. I post here when I have something specific to say, usually after a system makes me reconsider a default I accepted three years ago.
Engineering · Tooling · AI
Two years of AI-assisted coding, the parts that actually changed my workflow
What two years with Claude/Cursor in another window taught me. Where it earns its keep, where it actively slows me down, and the loop I settled on.
9 min · 28 Apr 2026 · Read →Engineering · Distributed systems · Messaging
Redis Streams vs Kafka vs RabbitMQ, three brokers I've shipped, when I reach for each
All three in production: Kafka at SafeBoda, Redis Streams at InstaEscrow, RabbitMQ in two contracts in between. They are not interchangeable.
10 min · 14 Oct 2025 · Read →Engineering · Payments
Idempotent webhook reconciliation for M-Pesa
Exactly-once is cheaper than retries-with-prayers when the counterparty is M-Pesa. The three primitives that get you there.
7 min · 22 May 2025 · Read →Engineering · Distributed systems
Why I picked Redis Streams over Phoenix PubSub for InstaEscrow
Phoenix PubSub is the obvious default for Elixir-native real-time. Three things made me reach for Redis Streams instead.
6 min · 19 Nov 2024 · Read →Engineering · Healthcare · Compliance
What HIPAA actually asks of an engineer
Three years of patient software in eight US states. The 70% of HIPAA that nobody puts in the marketing checklist.
8 min · 6 May 2023 · Read →