AI as a Tool for the Mental Load
Earlier this year I wanted to plan a family vacation. For anyone who has ever planned a trip for young kids, you know that that is actually a lot of work. Planning meant researching, booking, and...
Brittany Ellich
Software engineer, newsletter writer, and podcast host writing about AI, accessibility, and building a sustainable engineering career without burning out.
Latest posts
108 PRs in eight days: Accidentally discovering loop engineering
For the last week or so I ve had an agent working my task board. It picks up a task, writes the code in an isolated worktree, opens a PR, gets CI green, responds to review feedback, and parks the...
Why I'm betting on ATProto (and why you should, too)
I m coming home from ATmosphereConf filled with hope and a renewed sense of purpose. I want to talk about why. But first, some context. The problem with social media as it exists today I have strong...
Embrace the uncertainty
It seems like everyone is trying to make predictions right now. The discomfort of not knowing what the future holds is unbearable, and making a prediction (even a terrifying one) feels better than...
Start where you are: A practical guide to building with AI
A former manager of mine recently reached out and asked if I d come talk to his team about how I use AI in my day-to-day work. I loved this because 1) I was super flattered and 2) I got to prep...
Working Safely With AI Tools (A Non-Expert's Field Notes)
Let me be upfront: I m not a security researcher. I m a software engineer who, like most of us, thinks about security just enough to not be reckless. But after a year of working with AI agents...
Living in the Inflection Point
I ve been trying to write this post for a while now, and I keep putting it off because I don t think I have the right words for what I m feeling. But I think that s kind of the point. None of us do....
I guess I'm AI-pilled now?
As I ve mentioned before, I have pretty mixed feelings on AI. Like many things in life, more than one thing can be true. I m also going to throw a caveat here up front that most of my examples use...
AI Has an Image Problem
I spent 2025 going from skeptical to genuinely excited about AI tools. My non-tech friends and family spent 2025 learning to hate them. It’s not that I think everyone needs to love AI. I understand...
2025 in review
As 2025 came to a close, I found myself in a pretty reflective mood. It seemed like a good time to sit down and take a look at what I had planned for the year and see how things went, as well as to...
Representing groups in ATProto
Around the holidays I’ve had some spare time and energy for tinkering, so I decided I wanted to dip my toes into the AT Proto space. The community has been lovely and welcoming, and I have learned...
Build the thing you wish to see in the world
Two weeks away from my day job taught me something important: for the vast majority of my developer career I ve been confusing building products with building businesses. That distinction kept me from...
A Software Engineer's Guide to Agentic Software Development
I ve watched the same cycle at every company: product teams prioritize features over codebase improvements, tech debt piles up, engineers get frustrated, and the application becomes more brittle and...
Untitled
The most frequent question I get is "How do you do so many things?". I do a lot of things outside of working full-time, and I have been asked this question enough that I thought it was time that I...
I finally added Bluesky comments and likes to my blog
and you can too!
My Adventure on the Web Dev Challenge - Caffeine, Code, and Cameras!
I recently did something that ranks in the top 5 coolest experiences of my professional life: competing on the Web Dev Challenge! For anyone considering this wild ride in the future (or just curious...
Epic Web Conf - You can just do things
I went into the Epic Web Conf event not knowing what to expect. This year I m looking for events to attend to learn, network, and experience the tech community. I wasn t sure if this would be the...
How I use AI to enhance my writing
Do you want to start writing, but don t know how to gain momentum? Are you struggling to maintain a consistent writing habit? I ve been there. For years I have wrestled with procrastination and the...
Not the most technical one in the room: On imposter syndrome
My parents were huge Jim Carrey fans and The Truman Show came out when I was 6 years old. That s a very impressionable time for a kid. The show was rated PG, but it always felt to me like a horror...
Untitled
In a previous post, I discussed how I use Obsidian to organize my work, and that system has remained largely the same since then. However, I recently encountered a challenge that led me to rethink how...