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Unit tests are the worst. Don’t get me wrong, they are an invaluable part of any CI pipeline or automation. But man are they a pain to write.

Latest: Test-Driven Development with AI: The Right Way to Code Using Generative AI

I build a lot of automated workflows. Across the suite of apps that powers Ready, Set, Cloud, I have a dozen or so mature, long-running automations that do some work, wait for something, then do more work. A great example is my newsletter. I often write it on Fridays and publish it on Mondays. After I open a PR for an issue, my backend service does some initial work, but it waits until Monday to send the emails and start analytics tracking.

Latest: Send your events later

Episode Summary Have you ever wished you could quit your job and go create content all day long while working for yourself? You can! In this episode, Yan Cui joins Allen Helton to talk about full-time content creation and consultancy within the serverless world. The two discuss Yan’s journey to greatness, weigh in on the use of generative AI in content creation, and cover tips and tricks to get better engagement.

Latest: Becoming a full-time serverless content creator with Yan Cui

I’ve published a weekly newsletter every Monday for the past 4 years that showcases content from the tech community. The sole purpose of all 221 issues has been to highlight creators who educate the community and teach you a thing or two every week.

Latest: PSA: That probably doesn't need to be SaaS

In 2025, I did a series of videos that went through five design principles for production-ready AI agents. In my episode about guardrails, I made the statement, “If you can get away with not calling a model, do that.” In the episode about agent tools, I made an argument saying to build idempotent tools and store responses temporarily in case of retries or duplicate requests. I didn’t know it at the time, but I essentially was making the same argument just with different words.

Latest: Your agent is repeating itself

Once a quarter, my company puts on an internal conference for continued education. It covers a wide breadth of topics, from quality assurance to mobile development to security. I am responsible for the cloud sessions.

Latest: The Power of High Functioning Dev Teams

Every year I give my brother his Christmas gifts in an untraditional way. It started off as just a way to be funny on Christmas day, but eventually escalated to the point where I make it a whole ordeal.

Latest: I Made the Best Christmas Present Ever... Again. This Time With Alexa, WebSockets, and Mobile Apps

Last week I ran an experiment. I had a sticky note on my desk labeled “Architecture Diagrams”. Whenever I was in a meeting, if I said I can draw a diagram for that, I wrote a tick mark.

Latest: Solutions Architect Tips - How to Build Your First Architecture Diagram

Lately I’ve been working on a project that has significant meaning to me. It’s called the Good Roots Network, and it’s an application designed to connect local gardeners with people in their communities who need food. Growers list available produce, “gatherers” (social workers, non-profits, etc…) request it, and the system coordinates the full lifecycle from availability to pickup. It helps strike a balance in the community, too. When gardeners decide what to grow, it identifies gaps and suggests you grow something nobody else is to increase diversity and availability. Conceptually, it’s simple. Practically, it’s API-driven from the ground up. Roles, inventory state transitions, request validation, ownership transfer, notifications. All of it moves through contracts.

Latest: Postman might be my new favorite IDE

For years I’ve been proud to say I build 100% serverless cloud applications. I wore it as a badge of honor that the software I designed could elastically scale at every tier and cost virtually nothing to run at small to medium scale.

Latest: The Solution Architect's Guide to Serverless

I’m about to tell you something and I don’t want you to judge me for it. I have a Windows machine. Always have. I’ve never had a Mac or anything Apple, really. Just some Airpods. But my phone is Android, my work laptop is Windows, my home PC is Windows, and I’m not sorry about it.

Latest: Okay, Gitpod Flex is actually pretty cool

In 2023 I spent a lot of time learning about real-time notifications. I learned about the concepts, the different protocols, and how to implement them to seamlessly push updates to a user interface. I won’t claim to be an expert, but I definitely feel comfortable with the different ways to get a message from a server to an end user.

Latest: Building For Interactivity: When Async Is Not Enough

Today is my last day at Tyler Technologies. I’ve been here for just about 11 years.

Latest: Growing Your Career in the Evolving Tech Field

Serverless applications are known for a few things. They scale to meet demand, including down to 0. They are fault-tolerant in the event of a transient network outage. They cost almost nothing to run when compared to containers or traditional software deployments in most cases. ‍ And they’re known for speed. Serverless applications are fast.

Latest: How a Centralized Cache Elevates Serverless Applications

Hey everyone, it’s been a while. I feel like I’ve lived two lifetimes since the last time I posted something. In case you missed it, a few weeks ago I faced the hardest tragedy a parent can go through. I still have no words. It’s an indescribable pain that I genuinely hope nobody reading this will ever go through.

Latest: I'm back!

I’ve been blogging since 2019. I started off intermittently posting articles maybe once a month, as we all do. As I got more and more comfortable with writing, I started setting goals for myself. I tried to write 3 articles a month. I mostly hit it, but didn’t quite reach it. However, I was bitten by the writing bug.

Latest: Making Sense of Cross-Posting: Knowing Where And Why to Publish Your Content