Recent content on Gordon Burgett | Director of Software Engineering, Albers Aerospace
Scrum is broken. I thought I knew what Agile looked like. 2-week sprints, story points, daily standups. I ran that cadence at my last job. But something changed with Opus 4.7. Now, once we’ve groomed the cards and defined the sprint, everything is done within a day. Doesn’t matter how many cards we throw into a sprint, we just fire up more parallel agents.
The Problem I’m Trying to Solve I’ve been coding with AI agents for as long as they’ve been generally available, and I keep running into the same bottleneck: me. Every time Claude generates code, I need to review it. Every time it completes a feature, I need to verify it actually works. Every time it runs tests, I need to check if the failures are real bugs or hallucinations.…
What does it look like to build AI agents that actually empower people’s lives, not just “augment” them? For HealthShare Technology Solutions, I wanted to build an AI agent that non-technical users can actually use to take the hassle out of their health care cost sharing plan. In this post I’ll describe the guiding principles and design decisions that made Alice not just…
As Director of Tech Dev at Watermark, I overhauled our mobile app managing the entire process from vision casting through budgeting, vendor selection, implementation, testing, and launch.
Sometimes the hardest thing to figure out is not “how” to best apply a new technology, but “when not” to apply it. Nowhere has this been more true than with AI. With the rush to stick the AI brand on every project, software engineers are being pressured to “just throw more AI” at the problem and hope it works. In my hourly contracting on Neighbor Solutions ,…
I built the HealthShare app to solve my own problems with Christian Healthcare Ministries (CHM). We’ve now grown it into a B2B SAAS serving multiple churches. With the HealthShare app, we’ve solved the administrative burden of CHM for members, and we’re providing visibility into CHM spend for healthcare plan administrators at our partner churches and businesses. Would you like to…
In the process of building out the VoirDire App for our client, we ran into an interesting problem. How do we enforce licensing requirements in a cross-cutting way, without tediously identifying every area in the UI where the user might take an action that they were not allowed to take? The client’s licensing requirements were: On the free plan, a user can have 1 trial, up to 20 jurors, and…
We built the VoirDire app to help our client handle jury selection electronically for his upcoming trials. He is now marketing the app through his network of attorneys to build out the user base. Many attorneys still use pen and paper sticky notes to write down juror notes, including tracking responses to juror questions during the jury selection process. We solved the note taking process…
As AI tools continue to reshape software development, I’ve been particularly impressed with Cursor, an AI-powered code editor that has transformed my daily workflow. After several months of use, I want to share my experiences and observations about why this tool has become indispensable in my development process. The most striking impact of Cursor has been the dramatic increase in my…
In contracting hourly for Neighbor Solutions , I’ve been enjoying working with AI to build unstructured data import and a Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) pipeline. Neighbor Solutions is a brand new CRM built to enable organizations to better care for our unhoused neighbors and those in need. It features a frontend app built using the Astro javascript framework that displays a local map…
Day 1 Saturday July 2 After an 11 hour overnight flight, a 7 hour layover, and multiple last-minute passport issues, we made it! As it turned out, two of our team members were unable to get their passports or travel documents in time for the flight. But the Lord is sovereign over that too, and He has a reason for everything He does. We are thankful that He allowed 10 of us to get over here!
Day 1 Sunday September 19 Travel day - got on flight Saturday night at 8 Mini heart attack about proving vaccination status Ate dinner pre-flight, got to know the team (what you do, what got you to Albania) Brian, engineer Andrew, accountant Allison (Alli), WM students team admin Madison, PR & Social media Allye, PR Tobin, WM director of intl ministry & former pastor in hong kong for 20 yrs Day 2…
This year we unfortunately had to cancel our summer project due to COVID-19. But there’s a purpose in everything God does! Though we were sad to not see our friends during the summer, we have kept in touch with them through a weekly Zoom call. Through this weekly touchpoint, and God’s provision, we were able to go as a small team in October! Day 1 Monday October 12 My Fiancee Allye…
The in-between I had a full week in between the Shkoder project and the YP project. I spent half of it working remote and the rest just catching up with friends. I found a really good coffee shop to work from. with a wonderful view. Day 1 Sunday July 7 Today my first responsibility was going to get everyone from the airport. Back on the receiving end! I enjoy hosting and it was fun to be able to…
Day 1 Tuesday June 25 We arrived in Tirana around noon and met Pal at the airport. Glad to be back in country! It’s been almost a year since I was here last - too long. We went with Pal to pick up Wes and Daniel at Hotel Sokrat. While there we met with Aldo for a bit. It was nice to catch up with him too! He’s tranisitioning to a new role with partnerships, and Pal & Ueda next year…
According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 3:10-11 What is it that we are building together with our partners in Albania? Why do you keep supporting me and my team…
This month, while we’ve been working on the summer project here in Albania, I’ve been reading the book of Acts. I love all the descriptions in the book of Acts of faithful people who were not Apostles. Some of them, like Cornelius the centurion, had been faithful for a very long time, and God answered their prayers powefully. About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision…
Day 1 Sunday July 1 We traveled overnight Friday, finally arriving Saturday night. After checking into the hotel I was beat. I went to sleep right away and managed to sleep 9 hours straight. It was good though to see Berti, Pal, Ueda, and Aldo, who all picked us up at the airport. Berti invited me to his bible study group before church. I met up with them at 8am at Mon Cheri. Berti, Xhulio, Zamir,…
I spent some time this week playing with Typescript 2.8’s new features for modeling various complex types. The new syntax that I wanted to play with was the conditional type syntax, 1 T extends U ? X : Y This syntax allows you to express some really crazy type relationships! Some of the most interesting ones have been pre-defined in the Typescript standard lib: Exclude<T, U> – Exclude from T…
It’s that time again! We’ve begun preparing to go back to Albania this summer! Looking forward to going back I’m so glad that I already had a chance to get back to Albania in December, when we put on a men’s conference for Cornerstone Church of Tirana . That was a great time of fun and fellowship with many of my close Albanian friends. I’ve been keeping in touch with…
When I look back on my experience with Albania, starting from my first trip there in 2013 until now, I can’t help but be amazed at the way God has used this partnership to bring change not only in my life but in the lives of my friends. My key verse for my 2-year stint in Albania was Mark 10:29-30 “Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother…
Hey Y’all! It’s been a while! I’ve been busy with settling in to my new job and routine with Watermark. It’s a really great place to work and I feel super blessed to have the opportunity to join staff there! But even as I readjust to life in America I’m still looking back to Albania and my next opportunity to go. And the Lord graciously provides! I will be going on a…
My site is getting pretty big now! 50+ posts, plus my journal entries from years past, I have content stretching over 4 years. So I started thinking about ways to add search functionality. And anyone who knows me knows I like to make these kind of things more complicated than they need to be, so with that in mind I had a fun challenge to solve. How do I add search functionality to a static site?
My journal for the 2017 project is up! photo by Lauren Dean End of the road All good things come to an end, and my STINT in Albania is no different. On 7 August I fly back to Dallas to spend at least 1 year there, with the hope that I’ll return to live in Albania sooner rather than later. At this point I’m holding all my plans loosely. I know what I want to do for the next year, but…
photo by Lauren Dean Day 1 Sunday July 2 Today was a travel day for the others, fortunately I didn’t have to travel :). I got to go to church and have a nice afternoon coffee with a friend. We went to go pick up the group at the airport at 5:00, but the plane was delayed a bit. We had a good coffee at the airport waiting for them.
So, I’ve got an announcement to make. These past several months I’ve been exploring two options for my time after my STINT is up. One area I was exploring was with the Digital Strategies team in Albania, working for Afrim Karoshi. I went to a conference with the Digital Strategies team here in May as part of that exploration. The second area was an open position at Watermark Community…
April was a fairly slow month. We had our normal schedule of a professional meeting and a social time. This month we had fewer people than normal, but we had a lot of new people which was very interesting. I’ve had several opportunities to follow up with contacts, though this appears to be a busy time of year for most of the professionals. We are trying more to model the follow-up process…
Today in 2017, there are a thousand and one different ways to build a website. As always there’s good old fashioned Wordpress , and of course there’s drag-n-drop website builders like Wix . One thing these have in common is that they need a traditional hosting environment, and for that you gotta pay. If you can manage it, the cheapest way to host a website nowadays is to create a…
We love momentum March 13-17 was a big week for us. We invited a group from Louisville, TX To join us for a week-long momentum building project. This group had an amazing impact, we drew in well over 100 people for the seminar, and our social time was a big success as well. We got a lot of new contacts and, as was our goal, we will be following up with them over the coming weeks.
So I took a look at my blog recently to make sure everything is working, and got a big fat “Your connection is not secure” message. Uh oh! Fortunately I just need to request a new certificate from Let’s Encrypt and install it. I’ve done this before, it’s a 10 minute job. Buuuuuttt… what if I could automate it? If I spend all afternoon on this I’ll save…
What a great weekend! This past weekend we went to Cyprus for a conference about reaching leaders and influencers for Christ. The group was about 28 people, including 10 professionals, 4 teachers, two businesswomen and a government worker. It was a great time of learning and inspiring our partners to reach their peers for Christ. One speaker was a bible teacher who took us through the book of…
Lots of stuff has happened this past month! Last I posted I was in the middle of a 2-week break in Dallas. That was a great and relaxing time for me, helped me to prepare mentally and spiritually for these next 7 months in Albania. I saw friends and family and enjoyed plenty of tacos. When I got back it was right back into the swing of things with a seminar the next day. It was a video seminar, we…
Merry Christmas to everybody! I love Christmas time, spending time with family, listening to the Advent messages at church, and especially the Christmas hymns. My favorite is ‘O Holy Night’. It’s my favorite because it speaks of the hope that came into the world when Jesus Christ was born. Hope is an elusive thing. Lots of people lose hope when what they desire becomes…
We’ve been working on follow up since Momentum Europe. We’ve had some good meetings with people, and had some good conversations. Of course our goal is to help our partners to do that more and more - to have the conversations that lead to Gospel presentations, to encourage them to share with and invite more people, and to build their confidence. To that end we organized a training…
September and October have been pretty slow months, as we plan and gear up for our first big event, Momentum Europe. I’ve been busying myself with a lot of administrative work, but we’ve also had opportunity to begin training our committed believers. Bursting your Bubble In my opinion, our greatest success last year was finding 8 believers who have decided to commit to being part of…
One of my projects during my vacation has been to take back control of my data. The question of online privacy is a difficult one, because while there’s some things you can do to improve your privacy, to really own your data takes a lot of effort and learning. For most people, hosting their own services is more headache than it’s worth. There’s a lot of good privacy-conscious…
Well, it’s been a crazy couple months! When I last posted we were about to start Ice and Spice, CRU Albania’s summer camp for high school students. As part of my role on the LLM team, I was also helping out with an International School Project conference for teachers and principals. So I was already a little worn out when Ice and Spice started! But I got energized when my friends…
photo by Ron Acord Day 1 Monday June 27 This year things have been a bit different, but I’m trying as much as possible to feel like I’m part of the American group. For the first 2 days though I also have some other responsibilities. My ministry team here in Albania, Leader-Led Movements, has a 2-day evangelistic conference called Life Choices. The graciously allowed me to go do Ice and…
Day 1 Monday July 4 Today was a nice break. We canceled the morning trip to Kruja, because all the Americans (including me) were worn out from the high schoolers. I slept in till about 9:30, then camped out with Wes and Chris at Mulliri Vjeter. They had to finish working on last minute changes to their presentations. We met up with the staff team for a relaxing lunch. The American team and staff…
What time is it? It’s summertime! It’s about time for Ice and Spice, the annual summer camp for high school students here in Tirana! My friends and I have been helping with this camp since the first time I came to Tirana, way back in 2013 . A lot has changed since then! Albania Fried Chicken went out of business, but there’s now a legit KFC at the mall (Albania has only one…
It’s always great to go home. I’ve had multiple definitions of “home” over the years, but right now the place I most identify as “home” is Dallas. Having just spent 5 weeks there, I can totally confirm that is still the case. Since I’ve committed to a second year here, I felt the need to go home and ask my supporters to commit to a second year with me.…
This is my happy place Lake Lyndon B. Johnson, about 45 minutes west of Austin. A beautiful constant-level freshwater lake. My grandmother has owned a lakehouse here for more than 30 years. My family and I vacationed here almost every summer. If there were no Good News to preach, I would as much as possible spend my time here. Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you,…
We’re moving into the spring now, and as I’m preparing to go back to Dallas for a 1 month fundraising trip, I thought I’d reflect on where we are after 6 months. Towards the Goal We have a growing number of contacts now, young professional believers who have been joining us for seminars and other activities. We’ve had a couple of vision casting meetings with them too. Word…
We got to see a really cool musical event this week! A big group of high school students from Colorado came to perform their evangelistic musical, “SHIFT”. CRU’s high school and college ministries invited a lot of students from all around Tirana. I even saw the Elbasan kids show up. Our young professionals all went and sat together near the front. It was pretty awesome to see how…
I’ve posted a lot about the good times recently on this blog, but I thought with this post I’d let y’all in on the tough parts. Like any job it’s got ups and downs. Sometimes you work real hard for what seems like minimal gain. Sometimes you have all these cool plans and they get interrupted by something out of your control. Especially when your job is people. This past…
I’ve been on a serious docker/aws kick recently. I’ve learned just enough that it drives me to play with it. I spent a lot of my free time on it this week, and didn’t spend as much as I’d like on learning Albanian… This could be a problem… Anyways I might as well post more about what I’ve learned. I’ve been wanting to make my web server more…
I had some time off today so I decided to revisit how I’m hosting all my stuff. One of my issues with using Amazon’s container service is that they make you assign resource values to each container, and those are not flexible. So, I have to give each container high enough memory that it won’t die, but then I run out of space on my server real quick. Since most of the stuff I want…
This past week I went to the STINT Mid-Year conference in Málaga, Spain. It was a lot of fun to hang out with a bunch of Americans! I didn’t know anyone when I got there, but by the end I had made several friends. The beachfront was beautiful, especially the late sunrise over the Mediterranean. I was excited to play a bunch of Ultimate Frisbee, since I hadn’t played for several months.
Here’s another technical post for y’all! I had some time this past weekend, so I took a look into the website I made a year ago for Reclaimed . The old version was made with Locomotive CMS , and hosted on Locomotive hosting . It was a good choice at the time, because we needed something fast. We wanted to deploy it before the 2015 super bowl. I’d previously looked into moving it…
I want to spend some time in this blog post unpacking what I’ve felt, what I’ve learned, and what I’ve found here in the past almost 3 months since I came to Albania. I really can’t believe time has gone by so fast. There’s so much to do, and so many new friends that it’s never boring. Is this what I want to do with the rest of my life? I can’t answer that…