Why do we keep deferring to whoever sounds most certain in technical decisions? Why does admitting "I don't know" look like weakness instead of intellectual honesty? And what are we teaching every engineer who's watching this play out? medium.com/@gemma.croad...

Seventeen men walk into a ski resort and write a manifesto about human-centred development. Twenty-five years later we're still blaming teams when it doesn't work. Still sending people on scrum master courses. Still pretending the problem is the people, not the framework. medium.com/@gemma.croad...

My creation for this weeks @codepen.io challenge, something that evokes a feeling of wintertime coziness. There is nowhere I would rather be in the middle of Winter than curled up with a good book and a cup of tea...! 📖 🤎 codepen.io/GemmaCroad/p...

CSS Wrapped 2025 has dropped! 🥳 It’s the annual recap of all things CSS and Web UI that landed in Chrome over the last year. This year was massive, 22 new features made it into the browser to help us build beautiful and better UIs…. 🫶 chrome.dev/css-wrapped-...

We don't talk about the fact that every time you ask ChatGPT to write a poem about your cat, you're contributing to a climate crisis we all claim to care about solving. medium.com/@gemma.croad...

Technical interviews filter for people who are good at technical interviews, not people who are good at engineering. We all know this, but we keep doing it anyway. medium.com/@gemma.croad...

This is very cool!!! It's a CSS terrain generator that leverages stacked grids and 3D transforms. Apparently inspired by Transport Tycoon, Sim City and other '90s isometrics classics, it's built with Vue and Nuxt 😍 terra.layoutit.com

A little bit of fun for this weeks @codepen.io challenge using CSS shape() and corner-shape, a random kaleidoscope generator... 🥰 💠 codepen.io/GemmaCroad/p...

We tell ourselves we're optimising. Making things more efficient, more scalable. But what we're actually doing is quietly redesigning human work to fit AI's limitations one "optimisation" at a time. medium.com/@gemma.croad...

Measuring productivity makes everyone less productive. We optimise for what gets counted, and the work becomes producing metrics. medium.com/@gemma.croad...

When you start with "we need to use AI" and work backwards to find problems, you're not solving technical challenges. You're avoiding uncomfortable conversations about what you're actually trying to accomplish. The hard part isn't building AI, it's knowing when not to. medium.com/@gemma.croad...

We're practising how to talk to something that never challenges us, never misunderstands us, never requires us to deal with messy human communication. The more we practice that, the worse we get at the real thing. medium.com/@gemma.croad...

AI uses more confident language when it's making things up than when it's actually right. We're dealing with pattern-matching systems that don't know when they don't know something. medium.com/@gemma.croad...

💥 did a small drawing explaining the JS execution model including the event loop. I hope it’s helpful to folks. Debugging is always easier when the underlying implementations are understood.

I created this vintage colour theory poster for this weeks @codepen.io challenge! It's a loving tribute to those beautiful scientific colour wheel prints I was obsessed with as a child (and honestly still am)... 🥰 🌈 codepen.io/GemmaCroad/p...

"Culture fit" in tech hiring often means "doesn't make us uncomfortable by questioning how we do things." But what if the person who doesn't quite fit is exactly what your team needs? medium.com/@gemma.croad...

There's something bothering me about engineering promotions. We assume good coders automatically make good leaders. Spoiler: it doesn't work that way. medium.com/@gemma.croad...

Searched for banana bread recipes lately? You'll find "The Ultimate Guide to Perfect Banana Bread: 15 Amazing Variations" written by a system that can't actually taste, touch, or try anything. This is AI slop. And it's breaking how we learn from each other. medium.com/@gemma.croad...

This is a bit of a stroll down memory lane bradfrost.com/blog/post/th...

“Why do we need all these engineers when AI can just… write the code for us?” Because engineering is mostly not coding. It's figuring out what you're actually trying to build and why. medium.com/@gemma.croad...

The tech industry promises AI will free us up for more creative work. But what happens when we outsource creativity itself? I’m curious to hear your thoughts, especially if you work in a creative field. How are you thinking about this balance? medium.com/@gemma.croad...

How is your organisation thinking about the intersection of design systems and AI? I've been thinking about this a lot recently, and I'd love to chat if this is the space you're working in 🙂 medium.com/@gemma.croad...

Thought for the afternoon: Are traditional design systems becoming AI constraint systems? Potentially the real value isn't in pre-built components anymore, maybe it's in the systematic knowledge about how things should work together? 🤔

I just read “In Praise of Normal Engineers” by Charity Majors' and it’s a refreshing take on the “10x engineer” myth. TL;DR: It’s not about unicorn individuals, it’s about building 10x teams where normal, everyday engineers can thrive, ship, and make real impact... 🙌 charity.wtf/2025/06/19/i...

CSS is advancing to become a more intelligent language, driven by emerging features such as container queries and the if() function. Gabriel Shoyombo explores this, considers the increasing complexity, and examines how developers are responding... 🤔 www.smashingmagazine.com/2025/07/css-...

Continuing with the CodePen challenges... 😁 codepen.io/GemmaCroad/p...

JavaScript turns 30 this year! It's gone from a tiny, quirky scripting language made in 10 days to the hottest programming language out there. Here are some big moments in its history that show how JavaScript has grown and where it's going next... 🎂 deno.com/blog/history...

Designing for neurodiversity means understanding that these folks aren’t just exceptions but have unique ways of thinking and engaging online. So, how can we make experiences that are more inclusive and work better for everyone? www.smashingmagazine.com/2025/06/desi...

The People’s Graphic Design Archive is a truly special project. Its aim is to create a virtual, crowdsourced archive that helps preserve the history of graphic design. You can explore it by collection or topic, or simply scroll through the homepage to discover some gold... 🫶 peoplesgdarchive.org

Because I still like writing CSS and building cute things... codepen.io/GemmaCroad/p...

A big question for our industry: If we increasingly rely on AI to generate frontend code, and that code tends to underperform on accessibility, are we at risk of creating a more inaccessible web?

Taking a long social media break was exactly what I needed, but I've missed connecting with everyone. I'm really looking forward to jumping back into conversations and catching up on what I've missed 🙂