Jamie Kosoy is an engineering manager, design engineer, full-stack developer, iOS developer, and creative coder.
You know, at Apple when we make a computer, what’s the lifespan of it? Maybe three years. In five years it’s a doorstop. Technology moves so fast. If you do your job right with Toy Story, this thing could last forever. — Steve Jobs, to John Lasseter and Ed Catmull
Dreamer was such a fun idea – I’ll miss it terribly. In case you missed it, Dreamer was a place to build and share agentic apps. It launched in beta in February 2026. By the end of March it had been licensed to Meta’ Superintelligence Lab and was set to sunset by May. Such a bummer!
In an earlier post I talked about my Notion powered fitness app, Gym Rat. This part of the series covered the backing “database”, Notion. I wanted to use Notion because (1) I’m a big fan (I worked there!) and (2) I like the idea of having direct access to the database. More recently I’ve created other tooling to generate workouts, but I liked getting the admin out-of-the-box here.
It‘s been a minute since I posted here. I’ve been inspired to pick it back up for the moment. I‘ve got a goal to archive as much of my career as I can here. AI has been helpful with that:
I built my own workout app that runs on my TV, all powered by a Notion doc . You can find the source code on Github and contribute if you’d like. I got into fitness shortly after my first daughter was born. My fitness goal ever since has been able to carry my children to bed every night (if they want), because once they’re too heavy to do that I’ll never be able to again. I used to go to a gym I…
One-on-ones can be awkward. You meet once a week (you are meeting weekly, right?!) and have to figure out how to make the time worthwhile. Much is made of how reports can (and should) drive these meetings. Regardless, I find it instructive to ask these two questions, typically at the top of our session.
I’m often asked what my management style is. I’m not even really sure how one defines these. Berkeley college was kind enough to pitch ten types, though Asana argues there are just nine. Some swear by servant leadership, and we’re all aware of micro-managers and the like.
Inspired by this post, I’ve decided to take an attempt at re-emerging back onto the Internet. I suspect I’ll neglect this place from time to time, as has often been the case with projects I take on. At least it’ll endure.
We spend so much time trying to get better, gain recognition or climb the ladder. How should we think about our time at work, and is it possible to be happier doing it? Jamie’s got some ideas, a microphone and your undivided attention to pitch you how you might do the best work of your life.
In late 2015, Jamie received an email from a friend of a friend with an idea for a kid’s game. They were thousands of miles apart, had never met and had never built an app before. Just six months later they released Melody Jams, which went on to top the App Store charts in 130 countries with more than 500,000 downloads worldwide. It also received a Communication Arts 2017 Award of Excellence.