Barend Erasmus

This is where I share thoughts, ideas, and things I'm working on — sometimes technical, sometimes personal. Just me, writing about what matters to me.

Featured

• Debugging Berlin’s Housing Market

  Published: 18 Dec, 2025 |  at  03:32 PM

  How an Engineer Approaches an Impossible Problem.

• The €1.00 Pull Request: My Weekend with Gemini CLI

  Published: 9 Dec, 2025 |  at  09:01 AM

  I spent a weekend coding with Gemini CLI. It cost €1.00 for one refactoring task. Here is my analysis of the real cost of AI-assisted development.

• Why People Follow Leaders

  Published: 23 Aug, 2025 |  at  02:29 PM

  What actually makes people lean in and decide, 'Yes, I’ll go with you'?

Recent Posts

• Hiring Software Engineers: The 3 Shifts That Instantly Improve Your Hiring Process

  Published: 12 Apr, 2026 |  at  05:29 PM

  Most engineering hiring processes fail because they look for the wrong signals. Here are three shifts that make your process more practical, consistent, and predictive.

• Coding Agents Are a Shortcut to Output, Not a Shortcut to Judgment

  Published: 6 Apr, 2026 |  at  04:43 PM

  If you want better results from coding agents, do not just prompt for the destination. Prompt for the steps. That is the real skill.

• How to Explain Complex Systems to Non-Technical Stakeholders Without Dumbing Them Down

  Published: 22 Mar, 2026 |  at  12:17 PM

  Explaining technical problems clearly to non-technical audiences is one of the most valuable skills a technical lead can develop. Here are the habits that help most.

• DRY Is About Knowledge, Not Just Code

  Published: 20 Mar, 2026 |  at  09:09 AM

  DRY is often misread as 'remove every duplicate line.' The real principle is about avoiding duplicated knowledge, and understanding the difference changes how you design software.

• AI Is Just Another Layer of Abstraction

  Published: 17 Mar, 2026 |  at  07:26 AM

  A thoughtful take on why AI coding tools are just another abstraction layer, and why problem-solving, trade-offs, and engineering judgment matter more than ever.

• How AI Quietly Rewrote the Engineering Interview

  Published: 24 Feb, 2026 |  at  07:18 AM

  How AI is reshaping software engineering interviews — shifting the focus from coding ability to system design, judgment, and architectural thinking.

• How to Actually Get Better at System Design

  Updated: 14 Feb, 2026 |  at  07:14 PM

  A practical guide for software engineers to improve system design skills through deeper understanding, hands-on experimentation, and real-world architectural practice.

• Why Are Forms So Difficult?

  Published: 13 Feb, 2026 |  at  10:58 AM

  We configure everything else. Why not forms?