Charity Majors
Co-founder and CTO of Honeycomb; previously an infrastructure engineer at Parse, Facebook and Linden Lab, and co-author of Observability Engineering.
Charity Majors did not write this page. ppll compiled it from their own words, each linked to the source. Is this you? · Report a mistake
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What they believe
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A company should always have as few employees as possible, and hiring is the lever a leader reaches for last rather than first.
You should ALWAYS have as few employees as possible. Always. Hiring more people should never be the first lever you reach for, it’s what you do after exhausting your other options.
charity.wtfSaid 17 Dec 2024This on korrents
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Changed their mind A hiring loop should have few, well-calibrated interviewers rather than many, because extra interviewers add veto points instead of judgement.
Now I used to cast a much wider net, like I felt like people ought to get to interview anyone who was being hired over them.
Said 17 Dec 2024This on korrents
The bold line is korrents’ wording; the quote is theirs. These one: what they wrote before what they said aloud, one per source, newest first.
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- NewsletterConfessions of an Unrepentant Slop Snob
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From one piece Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majors 15 beliefs · youtube.com
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Their words
You can use AI as a shortcut to help you not have to think too much. And you can use AI to help you think more deeply and more rigorously. And both of those use cases have their place. But when it comes to your core job function, we primarily want the second one, right?
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Their words
Here's a baseline. Uh you cannot send anyone something you haven't read. And in fact, if it would take them longer to read it than it took you to make it, it's probably slop.
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korrents.com
There is no human in the loop: you own the loop, and what comes out of it is your work rather than the model's.Their words
Another another thing we point out is just there is no human in the loop. You own the loop. The loop is yours. The loop is mine. It would not exist if it was not for me. So I am the owner, right?
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korrents.com
Trust is an account: whatever you withdraw from it by not reading the code has to be built back up somewhere else.Their words
If you're debiting from this trust account in the creation of the code, it has to get built up somewhere else.
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Their words
Okay, if I'm not going to read this code, how do I know it's going to perform within boundaries of the last code that I generated? That is conformance testing.
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Their words
It's like they have all the wisdom of their most senior engineers looking at every single diff and that is fantastic. Which means that you don't have to worry about remembering and looking and nitpicking and all the things that we're not good at anyway
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Their words
As soon as you merge, it should be going out. You like you should have to stop the train to make your code not go into production as soon as you've merged.
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korrents.com
Production is not what happens after development; production is a stage of development.Their words
Production is not what happens after development. It is a stage of development.
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korrents.com
Software engineers behave as though the world exists in the repository, and it does not: the world is production.Their words
it's always weird to me just how much software engineers really seem to believe that the world exists in the repo. It doesn't. It's production, you know?
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Their words
Like that just does not seem like the ideal artifact. We should be able to store them somewhere. We should be able to have architecture diagrams that we can review and discuss that generate that code to spec.
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Their words
I mean, if you if you think about it, you could generate 10,000 variants of a function faster than you could write it once.
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Their words
What I was saying in that piece though was, I think we were right to be skeptical that time. But now, I see the same thing playing out with would you be willing to ship it some code you didn't read? There's no point in arguing about if it will happen or when it will happen. Talk about what it would take.
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Their words
And it wasn't actually the models. It was the harnesses. It was all the tooling.
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Their words
We can go fast. Let's do same thing faster, you know, just boom. And I've come to feel like that is a very immature description of what better is.
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korrents.com
Team output is still what matters, however hard the industry pushes to measure individual output.Their words
I also believe that, you know, there's been this whole push towards individual output, but teams are still what matter. Teams output.
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Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 50 beliefs, 1 changed mind — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
Recent
Team output is still what matters, however hard the industry pushes to measure individual output.
I also believe that, you know, there's been this whole push towards individual output, but teams are still what matter. Teams output.
Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majors Said 12 Aug 2026
Equating better with faster is a very immature description of what better means.
We can go fast. Let's do same thing faster, you know, just boom. And I've come to feel like that is a very immature description of what better is.
Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majors Said 12 Aug 2026
The step change in AI coding in 2025 came from the harnesses and the tooling around the models, not from the models themselves.
And it wasn't actually the models. It was the harnesses. It was all the tooling.
Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majors Said 12 Aug 2026
Show 47 more
There is no point arguing about whether or when engineers will ship code they have not read; the only useful question is what it would take.
What I was saying in that piece though was, I think we were right to be skeptical that time. But now, I see the same thing playing out with would you be willing to ship it some code you didn't read? There's no point in arguing about if it will happen or when it will happen. Talk about what it would take.
Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majors Said 12 Aug 2026
You can now generate ten thousand variants of a function faster than you could write it once, and that economics pushes software towards replacement rather than repair.
I mean, if you if you think about it, you could generate 10,000 variants of a function faster than you could write it once.
Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majors Said 12 Aug 2026
Lines of code are the wrong artifact to review; what we should be storing and reviewing is an architecture that generates the code to spec.
Like that just does not seem like the ideal artifact. We should be able to store them somewhere. We should be able to have architecture diagrams that we can review and discuss that generate that code to spec.
Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majors Said 12 Aug 2026
Software engineers behave as though the world exists in the repository, and it does not: the world is production.
it's always weird to me just how much software engineers really seem to believe that the world exists in the repo. It doesn't. It's production, you know?
Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majors Said 12 Aug 2026
Production is not what happens after development; production is a stage of development.
Production is not what happens after development. It is a stage of development.
Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majors Said 12 Aug 2026
Merging should deploy: you should have to stop the train to keep merged code out of production, not push it to get there.
As soon as you merge, it should be going out. You like you should have to stop the train to make your code not go into production as soon as you've merged.
Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majors Said 12 Aug 2026
AI-validated pull requests beat human review at exactly the things humans are bad at, which frees the humans to argue about direction instead.
It's like they have all the wisdom of their most senior engineers looking at every single diff and that is fantastic. Which means that you don't have to worry about remembering and looking and nitpicking and all the things that we're not good at anyway
Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majors Said 12 Aug 2026
If you are not going to read the generated code, what you need is conformance testing: proof that it performs within the boundaries of the code it replaced.
Okay, if I'm not going to read this code, how do I know it's going to perform within boundaries of the last code that I generated? That is conformance testing.
Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majors Said 12 Aug 2026
Trust is an account: whatever you withdraw from it by not reading the code has to be built back up somewhere else.
If you're debiting from this trust account in the creation of the code, it has to get built up somewhere else.
Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majors Said 12 Aug 2026
There is no human in the loop: you own the loop, and what comes out of it is your work rather than the model's.
Another another thing we point out is just there is no human in the loop. You own the loop. The loop is yours. The loop is mine. It would not exist if it was not for me. So I am the owner, right?
Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majors Said 12 Aug 2026
You may not send anyone something you have not read, and if it would take them longer to read than it took you to make, it is slop.
Here's a baseline. Uh you cannot send anyone something you haven't read. And in fact, if it would take them longer to read it than it took you to make it, it's probably slop.
Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majors Said 12 Aug 2026
AI can be a shortcut around thinking or a way of thinking more rigorously, and for your core job function only the second one is wanted.
You can use AI as a shortcut to help you not have to think too much. And you can use AI to help you think more deeply and more rigorously. And both of those use cases have their place. But when it comes to your core job function, we primarily want the second one, right?
Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majors Said 12 Aug 2026
Neither the AI enthusiasts nor the AI sceptics are making it up; both camps are looking at real trends.
See, the problem is that neither side is making it up. Like they are seeing really scary trends.
Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majors Said 12 Aug 2026
Both AI camps believe they are the suppressed minority standing up for the truth, and that shared belief is why neither hears the other.
One of the things that's ironic though is that both of these sides feel like they are the tiny minority and they're outmanned and they're being suppressed and they are standing up for what is truth and valor in the face of the big AI folks or the big skeptics.
Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majors Said 12 Aug 2026
An account of an AI win is not worth publishing unless it is coupled with what that win cost.
It's like we need to hear the wins. We need to hear what's We need to hear about what's possible. We need to hear what's exciting. But you got to couple it with the costs.
Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majors Said 12 Aug 2026
Software is what AI will be best at, because software and AI are both made of logic and language, which is what lets us bake guardrails in.
Software is made of logic and language. AI is made of logic and language. And because of that, we can bake in guardrails.
Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majors Said 12 Aug 2026
Writing is thinking on paper and there is no shortcut for doing that thinking, so handing the writing to AI hands away the thinking.
And I have decided not to sink anymore because writing is thinking on paper. And there's no shortcut for doing that thinking.
Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majors Said 12 Aug 2026
You cannot really understand the code you write unless you are also the one operating it.
That was always a bad idea because it's split brain. Half of you are writing the code and the other half are understanding it. I would argue that you can't really understand the code you write unless you're operating it.
Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majors Said 12 Aug 2026
Twenty years of DevOps had one goal, a single feedback loop from writing code to that code in production, and it failed.
But I also think that in my mind, 20 years of DevOps was really about one thing. Trying to create one feedback loop that connected people writing code to that code in production. And it failed.
Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majors Said 12 Aug 2026
Everyone should be using OpenTelemetry, because instrumenting code is now literally faster and easier than not instrumenting it.
Auto instrumentation has gotten so good in recent years. If you're using Open Telemetry and everyone should be using Open Telemetry. All of the common patterns like all of the models are trained on them. So, it is literally faster and easier to build with instrumentation than to than not to.
Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majors Said 12 Aug 2026
If engineers do not hold themselves to a high standard and build efficiently, somebody else will come along and impose it on them.
If we don't do it ourselves, meaning hold ourselves to a high standard, build with efficiency, constantly be like trying to get better, if we don't do it ourselves, someone will come and do it to us.
Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majors Said 12 Aug 2026
Kind leaders usually do beat sociopaths in the same role, but only if they are also good at business.
it's it's not enough to be a good person. I believe that people who are kind and care about people can and and usually do do better than sociopaths in the same roles, but only if they're good at business.
Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majors Said 12 Aug 2026
We cannot say what a junior engineer is worth because we cannot say what any engineer is worth; it is all vibes.
The hardest thing about quantifying the value of junior engineers is that we don't know how to quantify the value of any engineer. So it's all vibes.
Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majors Said 12 Aug 2026
A company should always have as few employees as possible, and hiring is the lever a leader reaches for last rather than first.
You should ALWAYS have as few employees as possible. Always. Hiring more people should never be the first lever you reach for, it’s what you do after exhausting your other options.
“Founder Mode” and the Art of Mythmaking Said 17 Dec 2024
Neither running everything through the founder nor pushing decisions down is the better way to run a company; each only works if it fits that company’s own resources and values.
Either can work. Both have tradeoffs and implications. If you try to import either philosophy wholesale, it will break in unexpected ways; if you try to mix and match, it will probably be an unfettered nightmare.
“Founder Mode” and the Art of Mythmaking Said 17 Dec 2024
"Hire great people and get out of their way" is dangerous advice for anyone in a leadership role.
Earlier this year I started writing a piece on why “hire great people and get out of their way” is such terrible, dangerous, counterproductive advice to give anyone in a leadership role.
“Founder Mode” and the Art of Mythmaking Said 17 Dec 2024
A CEO cannot be a calibrated interviewer for every role, so insisting on interviewing every candidate makes hiring worse rather than better.
Can you be calibrated as an interviewer on every single opening, for every role? My God, no, not even close.
“Founder Mode” and the Art of Mythmaking Said 17 Dec 2024
Reference checks are more informative than interviews, and if you had to pick one you should pick references.
I’ve said many times that if I had to choose between interviews or references, I would pick references every time.
“Founder Mode” and the Art of Mythmaking Said 17 Dec 2024
Hire for a person’s unique strengths rather than for their lack of weaknesses, because a team exists to cover what any one person is not.
you want to hire people for their unique strengths, not their lack of weaknesses. If they’re strong where you need them to be strong, it’s okay if they aren’t equally superpowered at everything — that’s why we build teams, to supplement and balance each other out.
“Founder Mode” and the Art of Mythmaking Said 17 Dec 2024
There is no such thing as the best people; you are trying to hire the right people for this team at this stage.
Here’s one small mental hack that makes a world of difference: remember that you are trying to hire the right people to join your team/org/company. Not the “best” people. The right people.
“Founder Mode” and the Art of Mythmaking Said 17 Dec 2024
Hierarchy is not intrinsically authoritarian: it is a property of self-organising systems that emerges for the benefit of the parts.
But hierarchy is not intrinsically authoritarian. Hierarchy did not originate as a political structure that humans invented for controlling and dominating one another, it is in fact a property of self-organizing systems, and it emerges for the benefit of the subsystems.
Questionable Advice: "My boss says we don’t need any engineering managers. Is he right?" Said 5 Jan 2024
A few larger teams under experienced engineering managers outperform many tiny teams each led by a working tech lead.
But everything I have ever experienced leads me to believe that a fewer number of larger teams, each helmed by an experienced engineering manager, should way outperform this gaggle of tiny groups.
Questionable Advice: "My boss says we don’t need any engineering managers. Is he right?" Said 5 Jan 2024
If building the organisation is nobody’s first job, it will not get done well.
If you aren’t making building the organization someone’s number one job, it won’t be anyone’s number one job, which means it probably won’t get done very well.
Questionable Advice: "My boss says we don’t need any engineering managers. Is he right?" Said 5 Jan 2024
Flat, manager-free organisations do not deliver the equality they promise: they get abandoned, and the informal power left behind is unaccountable.
On the other hand, the manager-free experiments I’m aware of (e.g. holacracy at Medium and GitHub, or “Choose Your Own Work” at Linden Lab) have all been quietly abandoned or outgrown.
Questionable Advice: "My boss says we don’t need any engineering managers. Is he right?" Said 5 Jan 2024
What sets a company’s velocity is spending its time on the right things, not how much code it produces.
What matters is moving the business forward, not churning out code.
Questionable Advice: "My boss says we don’t need any engineering managers. Is he right?" Said 5 Jan 2024
Treating the org chart as a ladder on which higher is always better is the central lie of hierarchy.
The “Big Lie” of hierarchy is that your organizational structure is a vertical tree from the CEO on down, where higher up is always better.
The Hierarchy Is Bullshit (And Bad For Business) Said 23 Sept 2022
Command-and-control leadership is poison in any industry that runs on creativity, because it stifles innovation and saps initiative.
But if there’s one thing we know, it’s that for industries that are fueled by creativity and innovation, command-and-control leadership is poison.
The Hierarchy Is Bullshit (And Bad For Business) Said 23 Sept 2022
Burnout comes from not caring and from not feeling needed, not from working the hardest.
The times I have come closest to burnout or flaming out have never been when I was working the hardest, but when I cared the least.
The Hierarchy Is Bullshit (And Bad For Business) Said 23 Sept 2022
Engineers should own their code in production, and it is management’s job to make sure that on-call does not suck.
It is engineering’s job to own their code in production. It is management’s job to make sure it doesn’t suck.
Why On-Call Pain Is A Sociotechnical Problem Said 30 Jun 2022
A permanently painful on-call rotation is a five-alarm emergency, not a normal cost of owning code in production.
Being on call should not be a constant cycle of things breaking down and firefighting, or alerts going off at all hours. This is not ‘normal.’ These are telltale signs of a fragile system and lack of alert discipline.
Why On-Call Pain Is A Sociotechnical Problem Said 30 Jun 2022
Being woken up two or three times a year on call is reasonable, and more than that is a management failure rather than an engineering one.
It’s reasonable to be woken up two to three times a year when on call. But more than that is not okay.
Why On-Call Pain Is A Sociotechnical Problem Said 30 Jun 2022
A sustainable on-call rotation needs seven or eight engineers.
The ideal on-call rotation has seven to eight people; five people is a bare minimum.
Why On-Call Pain Is A Sociotechnical Problem Said 30 Jun 2022
On-call is part of an engineer’s job rather than something to be paid extra for, except where paying for it is the only way to make management fund the reliability work.
I generally come down on the side of ‘no, it’s part of the job,’ just like it is for doctors.
Why On-Call Pain Is A Sociotechnical Problem Said 30 Jun 2022
The best engineering managers are never more than two or three years away from hands-on work, and the best individual contributors have done time in management.
The best frontline eng managers in the world are the ones that are never more than 2-3 years removed from hands-on work, full time down in the trenches. The best individual contributors are the ones who have done time in management.
The Engineer/Manager Pendulum Said 11 May 2017
Making management the only path to career progression is a mistake that costs a company the senior engineers it needs.
Fuck the whole idea that only managers get career progression.
The Engineer/Manager Pendulum Said 11 May 2017
Engineering and management cannot both be improved at once, so a new manager has to stop trying to be the senior engineer as well.
You can only really improve at one of these things at a time: engineering or management.
The Engineer/Manager Pendulum Said 11 May 2017
A manager’s calendar and an engineer’s calendar are incompatible, because management is interruptive and good engineering requires blocking interruptions out.
Management is highly interruptive, and great engineering — where you’re learning things — requires blocking out interruptions. You can’t do these two opposite things at once.
The Engineer/Manager Pendulum Said 11 May 2017
Beliefs others hold too
Flat, manager-free organisations do not deliver the equality they promise: they get abandoned, and the informal power left behind is unaccountable. 2 hold this
On the other hand, the manager-free experiments I’m aware of (e.g. holacracy at Medium and GitHub, or “Choose Your Own Work” at Linden Lab) have all been quietly abandoned or outgrown.
Questionable Advice: "My boss says we don’t need any engineering managers. Is he right?" Said 5 Jan 2024
A sustainable on-call rotation needs seven or eight engineers. 2 hold this
The ideal on-call rotation has seven to eight people; five people is a bare minimum.
Why On-Call Pain Is A Sociotechnical Problem Said 30 Jun 2022
Making management the only path to career progression is a mistake that costs a company the senior engineers it needs. 2 hold this
Fuck the whole idea that only managers get career progression.
The Engineer/Manager Pendulum Said 11 May 2017
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Recent
Loved Blood Rites: On The Origins and History of the Passions of War
But I was hooked within ten pages, my mind racing ahead with even more evidence than she marshals in this lively book.
What others say about Blood Rites: On The Origins and History of the Passions of War →
Where they publish
Newsletter charity.wtf On-call, hiring, hierarchy and the engineer/manager pendulum.
Her long-running writing on how engineering organisations actually work, now published on her own domain.
Recent
- If your team is happy, are you doing a good job? 8 Oct 2026 Brilliant jerks, ZIRP-era managers, and how psychological safety lost the plot. Part 3 of my conversation with Dr. Cat Hicks.
- Where do AI norms come from? 21 Sept 2026 A dialogue with Dr Cat Hicks on ethics, learning, and what we owe each other. Part one: start by listening.
- Confessions of an Unrepentant Slop Snob 14 Sept 2026 A framework for thinking about when AI involvement is additive or a violation
Show 17 more
- Have you heard? Clickhouse is winning the observability wars! <-- THIS IS SARCASM 8 Jul 2026 Years ago I predicted that columnar storage would remake observability. What I didn't see coming: vendors would build it, nerf it, and sell a worse version back to you as "Datadog, but cheaper"
- In defense of AI mandates 2 Jul 2026 When you need to execute a coordinated change on a tight timeline, a mandate is the best and most honest way to fund it.
- Is it ethical to use AI? 24 Jun 2026 On externalities and engagement, the problem with purity politics, and why we need to make AI boring again
- AI demands more engineering discipline. Not less 15 Jun 2026 If you lived through the shift from handcrafted server pets to immutable infrastructure, you should sense something oddly familiar about what's happening now.
- AI enthusiasts are in a race against time, AI skeptics are in a race against entropy 2 Jun 2026 Both sides are grappling with a real existential threat, and both sides feel like they are screaming into the void. Here's how to close the gap and get everyone pulling in the same direction.
- Your Data Is Made Powerful By Context (so stop destroying it already) 9 Mar 2026 In logs as in life, the relationships are the most important part. AI doesn't fix this. It makes it worse.
- My (hypothetical) SRECon26 keynote 3 Mar 2026 One year ago, Fred Hebert and I delivered the closing keynote at SRECon25. Looking back on it now, I can hardly connect with how I felt then. Here's what I'd say one year later.
- First I wrote the wrong book, then I wrote the right book 19 Feb 2026 I'm not sure whether to say "thank you" or "HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME", but this one goes out to all the people who sent me advice on buying software last fall.
- Martin Fowler told me the second edition should be shorter (it's twice as long) 18 Feb 2026 90% new material, a clearer mission, and a rogues gallery of contributors. The second edition of Observability Engineering is almost done.
- Bring Back Ops Pride 19 Jan 2026 "Operations" is not a dirty word, a synonym for toil, or a title for people who can't write code. May those who shit on ops get the operational outcomes they deserve.
- On Friday Deploys: Sometimes that Puppy Needs Murdering 24 Dec 2025 It's the most wonderful time of the year: the pie, the eggnog, the eternal debates over whether deploy freezes cause more harm than good. 🤶🌲
- 2025 was for AI what 2010 was for cloud 22 Dec 2025 The satellite, experimental technology has become the mainstream, foundational tech. (At least in developer tools.)
- Hello World 19 Dec 2025 On platform choices, professional responsibilities, and picking your battles
- Moving from WordPress to Substack 14 Dec 2025 After a decade on WordPress, it's time to try something new.
- From Cloudwashing to O11ywashing 24 Nov 2025 I just watched a panel where tech execs nodded along as someone described the original definition of observability as an "unsolved problem" they had to build custom tooling for. My head exploded.
- How many pillars of observability can you fit on the head of a pin? 30 Oct 2025 The "three pillars" are a lie that keep good engineers trapped inside a mental model from the 1980s, paying outrageous sums of money for tooling that can't keep up with the complexity of modern systems.
- Got opinions on observability? I could use your help (once more, with feeling) 13 Oct 2025 No, I haven't finished writing the book yet. Yes, I have more questions. Please? 🙏🌈✨
Link verified 8 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
x.com @mipsytipsy Short posts on operations and engineering management.
Her long-standing account, the same voice as the newsletter in shorter form.
Recent
- This guy runs a podcast. It's his six year anniversary. So he asks ChatGPT who he should have on and why, and then he does a thread tagging people like me @kentbeck, @lethain, etc with the reasons. This is a great example of something I just wrote about: 17 Sept 2026 charity.wtf
- my considered take on abstractions 17 Sept 2026
- the first in a 3-part series on @honeycombio's AI norms and values is up, called "How We Do Business at Honeycomb." https://t.co/xCYsDqsvYl values are not supposed to be aspirational. values should codify how things actually work. this is how it works at our company. 20 Aug 2026
Show 17 more
- Years ago, I predicted that columnar storage would remake the landscape of observability tools. I thought we'd see a wave of new columnar-backed observability tools grow up to displace the old, creaky, three pillars model with tech that is faster, easier, cheaper, and better in every way. I was half right. Observability vendors, you are chasing the wrong ball. Datadog's great weakness is not their price point, it's their product. @ClickHouseDB, good job. You don't make me want to stab my eyes out. In this market landscape, that's high praise. 9 Jul 2026 charity.wtf
- Go read this post from Mat Duggan right now -- "@ClickhouseDB is Winning the Observability Wars". Go! I'll wait. https://t.co/LOsYeGNUJH "Every other observability backend I've worked with mutates as it grows... ClickHouse at 10 TB a day looks like ClickHouse at 1 TB a day with more shards. That's it. That's the pitch. That's the whole reason I'm writing this." Duggan's piece is a riot from start to finish. He talks you through all the pain of scaling Elastic, LGTM, and Datadog, and shows why a little tiny bit of upfront effort buys you SO MUCH EASE down the road, as you scale indefinitely. W… 7 Jul 2026
- Everybody hates AI mandates -- unsurprisingly, since most of them are terrible and poorly resourced. But they don't have to be terrible. A mandate plus enablement is the most honest and effective way to fund a lot of change on a tight timeline. 2 Jul 2026 charitydotwtf.substack.com
- the most effective leaders are skilled business operators and kind, empathetic humans. the second most effective leaders are skilled business operators but terrible humans. ..after that comes everyone else. my second @StackOverflow advice column is up! 1 Jul 2026 stackoverflow.blog
- i said i would write a followup piece on AI and ethics, and I have. Here it is. We do not get to choose to live in a pure world. But we get to choose whether to help shape the compromised world we already live in. 24 Jun 2026
- Telemetry is a product decision. These are not your old school infra logs and metrics; this is not your system exhaust pipe, spewing crap into the sky. The trace is all you need. But the trace must be part of the product. The trace is your source of truth. 16 Jun 2026
- If you lived through the era when sysadmins stopped handcrafting server pets, what's happening now should feel eerily familiar. Nondeterminism will require more engineering discipline, not less. This is our best chance to take our engineering values mainstream. 15 Jun 2026 charitydotwtf.substack.com
- this statement is true, but it all comes down to: "What does quality mean, in this particular circumstance?" talking about "fast" and "slow" is toddler-level reasoning, and it irks me when the AI debate gets so wrapped around that axle. 13 Jun 2026
- tfw AWS posts something you recorded at AWS:reinvent EIGHT MONTHS AGO, with no indication that it was not recorded last week. It's not that I don't stand behind what I said....Or maybe it is? I don't remember what I said, it was eight months ago. 13 Jun 2026
- I have a not-so-secret love for advice columns. Which is why I just started writing one for @StackOverflow, every other Friday for the next 3 months. First column is up -- "Paging Charity! How do I get my leaders to stop running teams into the ground?" 13 Jun 2026 stackoverflow.blog
- Indeed. Like my stickers say. 4 Jun 2026
- *peers* are you sure you hit save? looks same to me 🤔 4 Jun 2026
- i wrote a post about the growing divide between AI skeptics and AI enthusiasts. wins and costs are both real, but too often fall on different groups of people. when you're only experiencing half the story, it's too easy to write each other off. 2 Jun 2026
- Yes!!! So excited for this!! See you soon, Clickhouse Open House 🤓🌈 28 May 2026
- not sure why the link is broken now, but here 's the right one. it was really fun!! thanks for having me @jacksbridger 🤩 also shout out to @boristane who I mention in the first two minutes 🌈 11 May 2026 scalingdevtools.com
- If you ever wondered who can shit talk the most shit the fastest, @bcantrill or me, here is your chance to find out. (What you can't see: I'm wearing an "0x Engineer" t-shirt by Oxide as we record 😍) 28 Apr 2026
- Software Factory Meetup, day after tomorrow, get on it. I'll be there too. 🍻 28 Apr 2026
Link verified 8 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
Bluesky @charity.wtf Short posts, most days.
The same subjects as the newsletter, argued in public and much more often.
Recent
- Ah, I miss live tweeted recaps from the glory days of tech twitter! Here's a thread of my LDX3 talk, "what handcrafted servers taught us about handcrafted code". Thanks, Heidi!!! With a hat tip to @chadfowler.com, whose book "Regenerative Software" is now in O'Reilly prerelease. 16 Sept 2026
- I wrote a new piece yesterday, called "Confessions of an Unrepentant Slop Snob", about my escalating rage at AI-generated text. It includes a framework for thinking about when AI involvement is fine -- just another tool -- and when it lands as a violation. 14 Sept 2026 charity.wtf
- Wide events, winning again! 14 Sept 2026
Show 7 more
- the first in a 3-part series on @honeycomb.io's AI norms and values is up. this one is called "How We Do Business at Honeycomb." www.honeycomb.io/blog/ai-norm... values are not supposed to be aspirational slogans. values should codify how things actually work. this is how it works at ours. 20 Aug 2026
- yes and the internet HATED IT. "we have too many abbreviations and shortened words as it is ... this is offputting to non-experts and inaccessible to the majority..." etc etc. (i think it's cute, and i'm glad you like it too) 19 Aug 2026
- with all apologies for the title of this episode... @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com means that 2026 is the year it stopped being possible to be skeptical about whether AI is going to change the way we build software, not that we should stop being skeptical about AI. 😉 19 Aug 2026
- a better use for claude i have never seen 👏 19 Aug 2026
- We're doing an AMA in a week and a half! Sign up now and send us your toughest questions, we'll do our best. 🐝 20 Jul 2026
- Love it. Why stop there? nines don’t matter until you don’t have them nines don't matter if the answer is slop nines don't matter when you are the training data four nines of confidently incorrect nines don't matter when you’re the product "human in the loop" is what you say when you've... 20 Jul 2026
- Years ago, I predicted columnar storage would remake the landscape of observability. I thought a wave of new columnar-backed tools would displace the creaky old three pillars model with tech that is faster, easier, cheaper, better in every way. Well, I was half right. 9 Jul 2026 charity.wtf
Link verified 8 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
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