Archive - Count the Diff

40 Engineers, 40 Definitions of Done.

Handing Cursor or Claude Code to 40 engineers with no shared contract doesn't multiply your output. It multiplies the coordination cost.

Jul 16 • Alex Tong

Stop Asking Your Engineers to Wear Multiple Hats

The builder is too deep in it, and too eager to ship, to also be the critic and maintainer. That specialization is what scales past AI.

Jul 14 • Alex Tong

I Hand-Built Liquid Glass to Prove It Was a Waste of Time

Two hours to build it, a couple reverts to fix it, and Apple's already shipping a slider to remove it. Turns out I was half right.

Jul 1 • Alex Tong

June 2026

I Watched a Loop Automate the Bulk of My Job

What is life anymore?

Jun 22 • Alex Tong

AI Has No Taste (Yet)

Why everything built with Claude looks the same

Jun 21 • Alex Tong

You're building on rented land: don't tie your work to a single AI model

🏚️ What a crazy email to wake up to.

Jun 14 • Alex Tong

May 2026

Earn the right to optimize

Your LinkedIn feed this week: "I built a second brain." "How I run 12 agents at once." "10 MCP servers you need." It's 10:30AM Tuesday and that's the…

May 12 • Alex Tong

April 2026

Teaching CLAUDE.md to 500 engineers at EngX

📣 📰 Just wrapped up EngX — The New York Times' annual engineering conference.

Apr 21 • Alex Tong

Claude's session limits accidentally fixed my burnout

Anthropic made a trade-off with your productivity last month and they didn't ask you first.

Apr 15 • Alex Tong

Claude won't kill junior engineering jobs

"Claude is going to kill junior engineering jobs." 🤔

Apr 9 • Alex Tong

When Claude starts hallucinating, kill the session

🤌 I was 45 minutes into a Claude Code session when Claude just — started making stuff up.

Apr 8 • Alex Tong

👁️ I Built Y'all an App Because My Eyes Were Dying 👁️

Your eyes are probably taking a beating. Here's everything I did to fix mine, including a free app I built for you.

Apr 4 • Alex Tong

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