AI-First Engineering: Writing Intent, Reviewing Code
How my engineering workflow changed when I moved from writing code with AI assistance to writing intent, directing agents and reviewing their output.
I'm • King'ori Maina
Thoughts, stories and ideas on software, engineering, technology and the everyday life of a curious engineer.
Latest posts
Working with AI Is a Question-Setting Problem
AI is often described as knowing a lot. That description is technically true, but the more interesting property is that it knows  too much  to be useful on its own. There are simply too many directions it could go in at once. Because of that, it can’
Product Sensibility and Taste in the Age of AI
Building is easier than it used to be. Deciding what's worth building isn’t.
How I Think About Learning
Learning through doing, using Andrej Karpathy’s breadth-wise vs depth-wise framing as a way to think about how understanding actually sticks.
Learning Phoenix's Intentional Boundaries
Contexts, boundary-making, and how intentional separation can change the way you reason about systems over time.
The Craft of Having Opinions
How opinions are formed; through exposure, taste, synthesis and attention ... and why cultivating them quietly strengthens how we think and work with others.
Agency
It’s not intelligence, grit or action alone that drives change, but agency, the quiet decision to act with intent.
The Comfort Trap
How comfort quietly turns into inertia, why growth often hides in the discomfort we try to avoid and how life’s responsibilities make those trade-offs more complex.
You Can Just Build Things
Don’t let fear or perfectionism stop you. Start building, ship early, and learn through iteration.
Making Infrastructure Boring
Choosing predictable, well-understood tools keeps systems reliable, maintainable and easier to operate. Sometimes, boring is better.
Caveats of Solving Business Problems with Software
Why software development can't be separated from deep business understanding and the hidden complexity that emerges between idea and implementation.
The Value of Deep Context in Business
Why true technical value comes from pairing coding skill with business fluency and why domain expertise matters more than ever.
Defining Technology
Douglas Adams's three rules about our reactions to technology reveal how our age shapes our relationship with innovation, and why understanding this bias is crucial for anyone working in tech.
The Power of Avoiding Stupidity
Inversion thinking: why focusing on avoiding mistakes often leads to better outcomes than pursuing brilliance.
Two Kinds of Failure
Robert Greene's distinction between two types of failure: the failure of never trying and the failure that comes from bold action.