How to end your Sunday: coding 🙏🏽

My latest blog post is out! 🎉 "The Reward is in the Risks of AI" 👀👇🏾 - the current risky landscape of AI 🚨 - reframing risk into challenging reward potential 🧠 - what you can do about it in YOUR role in tech ✅ www.nnennahacks.com/p/the-double...

🤩ANOTHER SPECIAL GUEST🤩 We have the fantastic @nnennahacks.com joining @nedinthecloud.com, @usrbinkat.io, and me to give us a lesson: PRODUCTIVITY w/ AI Topics: - AI Agents for DevRel - Claude projects for learning tech - Working w/ Claude to develop an open-source project 🗓️ TODAY @ 2PM ET 🔗👇🏽

“Just went to an AI conference at Microsoft and I asked the closing panel a question: “What will happen to those who don’t adopt AI? Im using it supercharge my life, what about the ppl who don’t?” Them: “America is the land of equal opportunity, NOT equal outcome.”” - @nnennahacks.com

The same way they didn’t educate us about taxes & financial literacy in these schools. Is the same way they won’t educate us on how to capitalize on what is happening next.

Wow… a lot has happened in 2 months. This post feels like it was written 6 months ago, at my rate of learning & building.

New LinkedIn newsletter is out. - Are open source LLMs really open-source? - I used to be fearless in tech. How things have changed… 👇🏽

All the hype around vibe coding is around building prototyping from scratch but most of the time we are adding to and augmenting highly complex systems.

Sometimes it feels like a crime to be different. Or to really embrace growth. You want to grow. Then you do. And then there’s crickets. You’re suddenly standing in an empty room.

There are some things I don’t need to be taught, as I understand them on an intuitive level. Therefore, it’s important for me to read content that affirms what I already naturally understand. Not just content that teaches me something I need to learn. Affirmation and validation matter.

Might have to use LLMs to teach me about the inner workings of open-source governance...

I’ve been meaning to look into @beeaiagents.bsky.social I want to explore that project. But I’ve been writing for several hours now… and I need to keep reading “AI Engineering” and there’s a 5-day Google course for GenAI starting…

I was in flow state for SEVERAL hours today… how is this possible??? Also, I’m so happy about it 😂

This AI workshop was incredible and glad I attended. So many inspiring women leaders looking to lead the charge in how to leverage LLMs effectively across communities. 🙌🏽

I’m going to experiment with “energy mapping”. Matching tasks to actual brain power as a neurodivergent person.

I feel unblocked today. 🥹 Emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. I will cherish it.

I decided to buy a beautiful Rag & Bone vest dress. Very well structured piece, quality fabric. My present to myself for existing. 😊

Venus retrograde is kicking my ass right now. Can’t wait for it to pass.

I hope the universe gives me a solid reason to go on a shopping spree soon. I’d feel less guilty if I know it’s for a really good reason. 🙂

Early morning before everyone is moving around is so peaceful 🧘🏽‍♀️

Instead of "Groups A and B just never talk to each other", I'm working on saying "what happens if groups A and B don't talk to each other?" Now I'm not speaking in absolutes, I'm not overgeneralizing, I'm rather talking about a hypothetical and *specific* instance, and discussing that Much better!

Feels like I'm leaving money on the table by not doing a scam or swindle of some kind. Would you guys buy a car for $100,000 if I pretended it can drive itself. What about a fake currency

vLLM East Coast meetup at Google 👍🏽 Met some folks from Red Hat’s AI teams and an architect from Cisco 👩🏽‍💻 Diverse, super technical crowd.

Pilates, quality time with loved ones, and online communities are keeping me sane at this point with what’s going on in the world.

I just learned about diffusion LLMs (dLLMs) 🧐 I’ve got some studying to do. 👩🏽‍💻📚

I attended Harvard Data Science Initiative 2025 workshop on Responsible AI and Governance. 🤓 All I can say is WOW. 3 hours of pure intellectual insight & discussion. 🙌🏽 I got to ask THE Pat Gelsinger what he thought about synthetic data generation for LLMs. I’m still shaking from that moment. 😆

Yuuuup. I despise "STAR" question formatting. The intent behind what they're asking for is fine, but the way they go about it makes everything far more awkward than necessary. I suspect it's a lot worse for neurodivergent candidates than NTs realize, but I don't have any evidence of that.

ToS addendum: If you see your co-workers on Bluesky, no you didn't.

Goal is to get some quick wins over the next few days and weeks.

There are very few tools / products I’m passionate about so when I find one I really value, I’m a natural champion of it. Same goes with the communities I join.

Exercised. And worked on docs. Also working on a developer education workshop. Let’s seeee how this goes!

Time management is one thing to tackle. But energy management is the skill that seems to encompass all things internal. Where your mind and emotions wander can either steal time from you or get you to the next step. My calendar shows I’m doing X task, but my mind shows I’m ruminating.

the most beneficial effect of many boycotts is on yourself 'but that won't hurt company x' is often irrelevant I'm taking back some agency I'm aligning my actions with my beliefs I feel better for it that's good enough in fact, imo it's better than punishment as a motive

March: Women's History Month Dr. Joy Degruy Author, Professor, Researcher, President and CEO of DeGruy Publications. #WomensHistoryMonth #blacksky #blackskyover40

A friend of mine once called me “intense.” And I didn’t really like that. But I think she’s right. And maybe in some ways that can be off putting. But I am intense when I want something, need to forge a new path for myself, need to rewire my brain to achieve a goal, need to be resilient, etc. 🤷🏽‍♀️

I mustered up the courage to do Pilates today. It was difficult to get myself into the mood, but I somehow pushed through. Only 25 minutes, but that’s better than avoiding it. 🥲

Honestly, I just default to ‘does not like me’ because I would rather die than push myself into a place I was neither wanted nor welcome

A goal of mine this year is to stop and celebrate myself. I never used to do it 🥴 So every 1st Saturday of the month is “Shaundai Day” The only rule of Shaundai Day is that I’m not allowed to do anything for anyone else unless it *also* benefits me. Nothing “selfless.” Just for one day a month.

Evenings in the city, soft music playing while cleaning… trying to be present and appreciative about the little things.

By the way this is why it's SO much easier to grow as a software engineer in a team where your manager is hands-on/technical. If they are: they understand the value (and cost) of going deep. They might even help! If they are not: they will see this as "slacking" or "being slow"

It takes time, failing and learning to become an expert in anything. A programming language, a framework, a stack etc. I don't really know shortcuts

This is so spot on. Two things: 1. Being focused on producing output the fastest way possible means that you will never prioritize "going deep" 2. Going deep (and down the rabbit hole) is how you learn more: but you need to balance it. Figure out how to do both: it's tricky!

hey real quick do you remember the title of the third book

I did my first self-review at work in a loooong time. The last time I did one was at VMware. It’s extremely important to advocate for yourself and speak to your accomplishments. The best way to do this is to maintain a brag doc and add to it throughout the year.

Build AI tooling that takes a mess of repos and identifies "oh when this file changes you have to also make a PR in this other codebase" type of issues Give me tooling that makes life easier for early career developers, newly-hired engineers, interns, and non-engineering people.

I hope my patience pays off.

my “things I need to write” backlog keeps increasing…

You don't actually have to be smart to run a business well, and you could argue that being smart is actually a hindrance. The best operators aren't the smartest, they're the most ruthlessly focused and steeped in whatever their business does best.

@bphogan.com I just read your latest issue of Code, Content & Career. On the topic of books being important in the “age of LLMs”, I couldn’t agree more. I will always rely on books for learning. Authors & their team are heavily vetted professionals. They are experts and provide sources of truth.