LLMs do not learn
LLMs, "AI" in the common parlance, do not learn. Cannot.
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Salesforce file storage ain't cheap
Mass-generating another ~160 GB of PDFs was the easy part. Doing it as the company closed in on their storage limit was the real challenge.
When "Clicks, not code" becomes "Clicks, not architecture"
Underengineering is a chronic issue in Salesforce and other no-/low-code platforms. "Clicks, not code" too often becomes "clicks, not architecture."
Wealth clients aren't leaving for AI. They're leaving your onboarding
Clients aren't leaving wealth managers for AI because AI is better. They're leaving because a chat window respects their time and your onboarding process doesn't. Every advisor I talk to has the…
'We need AI' is the new 'we need a hammer'
No one starts a construction project declaring "We need a hammer" but the amazingly effective Gen AI marketing has many people vaguely stating "We need AI." You need whatever tools get you to your…
Everyone can vibe code a prototype. A working beta wins the deal
Everyone and their mother can vibe code a prototype. In a sea of AI-hyped consultancies, a working beta is the difference between storytelling and assurance. Not a canned demo. Not a prototype that…
Agentforce is a masterclass in how not to build with Gen AI
Have you ever met someone who enjoys dealing with Agentforce in Salesforce Help? All I have heard are complaints. It's an ironic example of how not to build with Gen AI. My guess is there was a…
Humans learn proprietary wonkiness. Gen AI burns tokens on it
Humans are good at learning and accommodating proprietary wonkiness. Gen AI is not. That makes Salesforce inherently problematic as a substrate for agentic development. A seasoned Salesforce…
Data quality didn't suddenly matter because of Gen AI
I like how people keep talking as if data quality just became valuable because of Gen AI, and not a truism for data applications always. That framing also pre-supposes how Gen AI will be leveraged…
AI made fake demos easy. My BS detection has never been more valuable
I spent 40 minutes watching a 20-minute video demo the other day. Not because it was good. Because I kept having to pause every time the presenter waved his hand over something impossibly complex…
Sharing a moat instead of defending it
Sharing a moat instead of defending it. Recently I've been meeting a lot of experts who have spent years, sometimes decades, mastering their fields and are now ready to turn that experience into…
Creatio, firsthand: a 2008 .NET app in no-code marketing clothes
I led the implementation of Creatio as a highly customized, widely integrated CRM at a wealth management firm as my parting project. Since Creatio is receiving mainstream press coverage, it's worth…
Meta's AI didn't break account security. Its architects did
The Meta "AI" is not responsible for letting hackers reset the emails of Instagram accounts, the childishly optimistic architects who thought a security workflow should be handled by LLM token…
Sometimes you just have to sit down and define a dropdown menu
AI readiness. Database readiness. Middleware readiness. UI readiness. Solid state drive readiness. How are y'all preparing organizations for a software tool? Oh, with software development best…
None of this was the plan. All of it worked out perfectly
In my best Brando voice (which is awful), "Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in!" For more than a decade, my clients were primarily nonprofits. Not the fundraising side, the…
Give a consultant Gen AI and suddenly everything looks like an AI problem
Give a consultant Gen AI and suddenly everything looks like an AI problem. Your software needs didn't change when LLMs dropped. Users still need interfaces they don't hate. Data still needs to get…
RAG is why the reports of my career's death are exaggerated
LLMs are most useful at narrow tasks. The more complex the chore, the more it needs to be decomposed and guided with the right context, controls, quality gates, and security. As in, the more you…
PocketOS wasn't a rogue AI story. It was keys left in the door
The PocketOS incident has everyone clutching their pearls about rogue AI agents. An agent "found" a Railway API token with full production delete rights and used it. 😱 Except this isn't an AI…
Headless 360 is a gift to developers, and to Salesforce's margins
Salesforce #Headless 360 is a gift to developers. It is also a gift to their shareholders... for now, anyway. I've posted about my team's experience building React on #Salesforce data in relation to…
We're AI-assisted engineers, not *those* AI people
When engaging with new clients, I now have to remember to clarify that we are not *those* AI people. You know the ones. All of these amateurs flooding into my occupation making grandiose…
AI-caused calamities are human oopsies at scale
So many of the “AI-caused calamity” stories I see come down to basic gaps in permissions and process, the same issues I've seen take down production from humans oopsies. AI just does it faster and at…
Full stack after Salesforce is like running without the sand bags
Full stack development after working in Salesforce for a few years is like running without carrying sand bags for the first time in years. Constantly having to work around proprietary wonkiness…
Locking down Salesforce data access the way Headless 360 agents will
I recently shared how my team secured a wealth management mobile app and portal using Salesforce and Snowflake on the backend. With the introduction of Salesforce Headless 360, this design is more…
Planning a Sexit? Headless 360 just handed you the architecture
If you've been considering a Salesforce Exit (dare I say Sexit?), Salesforce just handed you a lower risk strategy to get there with Headless 360. Announced yesterday at TDX 2026, the pitch is…
Low-code solutions are dead. Long live low-code solutions
Low-code solutions are dead. Long live low-code solutions. Think about why low/no-code solutions exist. They're an abstraction layer far easier to work with than code. But that coupling of visuals…
If you can propose a technical solution, you already know how to sell
Salesforce peeps transitioning to consulting: you know that thing where someone tells you their business goal and you propose a technical solution? That's sales. More importantly, that's ethical…
The consultants who railed against vendor lock, then locked in my client
Remembering these con artists I had to work with who would talk about the evils of vendor lock and how they could just rebuild Salesforce (they had to bring in subcontractors to build the UI they…
What happened when I gave my Salesforce team real architects
What happened when I leveraged our Solutions and Technical Architects' (now my CPO and CTO) strengths within my last Salesforce team. ⬆️ The whole team's velocity improved. Before anything went into…
Telling AI 'don't' isn't a guardrail — build deterministic backstops
i TolD Ai NOT To dO SomETHing ANd iT diD it AnYwaY- people anthropomorphizing AI. If that inevitability is not factored into your use of AI, you need to take a step back and find some tutorials… or…
Claude Code one-shotted my prototype and reignited my love of building
Working with ClaudeCode on a slick project and it is reinvigorating my love of building software. After a lot of prep on the spec (Claude generates Mermaid diagrams for me! 💜), I asked it to spin…
What the Shiny Hunters breaches teach us about portal security
My talk on secure external portal architecture today on Salesforce Security Hours, with Melissa Hill Dees, MBA, ended up being very timely given recent news of the Shiny Hunters breaches. Video…
Performative quantitative analysis: data-driven talk without the data
Performative Quantitative Analysis. The act of using the language of data-driven decision making... without all that pesky data and analysis. “We need to increase our close rate” but your sales team…
GenAI without architecture is squirrels reorganizing your filing cabinets
GenAI agents in a workflow without proper architecture, sternly-worded prompts masquerading as security, is like hiring squirrels to reorganize your filing cabinets. Looks productive, doesn't end…
For years I undersold my highest-value skills: analysis and design
I undersold myself as just a software developer for years, not realizing my highest-value skills: I analyze situations and design solutions. The analysis process is a skill unto itself. In software…
The law of diminishing returns applies to LLMs too
It surprises me how many people insist the law of diminishing returns won't apply to LLMs, and that the opposite ("LLMs will become a real boy!") will somehow happen. An innovation arrives. An…
Nonprofits pooling for shared Salesforce builds: a model worth formalizing
A few of my nonprofit Salesforce solutions were for multiple organizations with overlapping missions who pooled to have me build core functionality. They all took the same unpackaged, exclusively…
The Mulesoft app that synced Salesforce to Snowflake from a config list
A list of Sobjects and authentication details was all my Mulesoft app needed to sync data from Salesforce to Snowflake every hour (configurable) with the latest updates. Add a new object to the list…
The first rule of Dunning-Kruger Club is you don't know you're in it
The first rule of Dunning-Kruger Club.... is you don't know you're in Dunning-Kruger Club. The AI-driven uptick in the hubris of "we don't need no stinkin’ experts anymore" has me thinking about the…
Why does HubSpot OAuth require super admin access?
So apparently, to set up OAuth access to HubSpot, the integration user has to have SUPER ADMIN ACCESS. Are you kidding me? To be fair, there is a hacky workaround (an appropriately secured user…
AI acceleration only landed because our codebase was ready for it
For my team, the rise of AI assistance coincided perfectly with our codebase having been wrangled into an admirable state. Most denormalized data structures had been untangled and properly…
The consultant reselling my team's work as their own platform
I just discovered a consultant marketing a “platform” they built with a client as their own product to sell. 😠 The description of the "platform" brags about the performance of the API, security layer…
What separates a real consultant from a con artist
Ever meet with a software consultant after months and think, "This person does not understand what we're doing here"? Frustrating, especially having been a consultant most of my career. Some of…
Building the Codality site with Next.js, Sanity, and our own dog food
Building the Codality website and eating our own dog food. AI-assisted development by senior engineers, with modern professional styling thanks to Amit Kulkarni. This snippet doesn't do the…
Nothing makes you appreciate Salesforce like an antiquated CRM
I know I often express my Salesforce cynicism here, but spending time working in an antiquated CRM that has no batch processing, claims to be "no code" but constantly forces me to stare at C# and…
Salesforce Data Cloud: pay to duplicate the data you already have
Salesforce Data Cloud feels like the ole okie doke. Isn't Salesforce... my data in the cloud already? They're basically admitting that their legacy architecture can't handle big data or AI features,…
TIL HubSpot keys contacts on email — hello, surprise data cleanup
TIL that Hubspot uses Email as a unique identifier and that kicked off a whole new surprise data clean up project. Moving (or even more so, syncing) massive amounts of data is never as simple as…
From bespoke builds to packaged niche solutions: Codality in 2026
The solution that made me realize I wasn't inheriting a nightmare Salesforce codebase, as I'd feared... My now cofounders Ryan McCloskey and Amit Kulkarni built a Quik! document generation solution…
What Salesforce got right #1: database abstraction
In the spirit of the holidays 🎄 and inspired by implementing a competing CRM, I'll pause my usual snark and share a few of the architectural decisions 🏗️ that I think Salesforce got right.…
Fewer layoffs means nothing without the reemployment rate
Why is no one talking about the reemployment rate? I keep being informed that layoffs in tech in 2025 were less than in 2024, and therefore anyone concerned has been hysterically misled. Paraphrasing…
Meet the AI Hype Circle — it rhymes with work
You may have heard of the AI money circle, but there's another circle I've been noticing: the Hype Circle. 🔄 Hype Lords declare AI the solution to all of humanity's problems 🔄 "Tech leaders"…
What Financial Services Cloud actually gets you for double the price
Not including Salesforce Shield in Financial Services Cloud is offensive. Shield would make that premium price tag make sense. Consider building FSC's limited features yourself for a one-time fee and…
The ghosts of CRM past, present, and future point to bespoke software
As we enter the holiday season, I find myself visited by the Ghosts of Technology Past, Present, and Future as my day is split between an antiquated CRM, a more typical modern enterprise CRM, and AI…
Bootstrapped, anxious, and charging forward anyway
Confession: I’m anxious about getting client projects lined up for Codality. Bootstrapped life means no investor cushion, just us and our ability to deliver. Not my first time at this rodeo, but it’s…
What a quiet help desk during a 3-month code freeze says about a team
3 month code freeze of an enterprise Salesforce instance... and hardly a peep from our help desk. Integrations flowing data in & out throughout the day, white glove automation ushering processes…
From solopreneur to cofounder: here's to next year's holiday party
Before the past few years, it had been a while since I had a consistent team, as a long-time solopreneur. I’d weave in and out of meeting-heavy roles... business analysis, design collaboration,…
If you know your Kung Fu, stop second-guessing your leadership
For those of us who aren’t arrogant blow-hards, stepping into leadership takes some adjustment. We may have an old habit of politely deferring on decisions... until we remember that we're accountable…
Pattern matching: from chimp data to LLM minions
Part of what initially drove my career was the way my brain can handle (and frankly enjoy) monotonously scanning through data or code and picking out patterns. I’m not a…
The 'Child First Name 1' problem: skipping data modeling for UI wins
The CRM standard of coupling data model to user interface has sparked more emotional debates in my career than I would have expected. On one side you have people who understand the benefits of…
Skip a step: bring someone technical to the first demo
After noting a pattern of sales reps crying "uncle” at my questions and scheduling a 2nd demo with someone technical, I’ve started requesting that up front. Most salespeople cannot handle me,…
Taking days off work to work on Codality
I took a few days off from work to work on Codality- tooling, marketing, product planning. I haven’t taken an actual full week of vacation, with no meetings, no bug fixes, no “urgent” email…
Why discovery should always be step one in software development
I had the absolute pleasure of going through the discovery process with a couple dozen nonprofits, including community service organizations providing workforce development and legal aid,…
How do tech leads keep their hands dirty?
With my career progressing to leadership roles, I don’t like the idea of being completely hands-off with development. The edge I’ve built comes from my combination of soft and hard skills, and with…
Why I won't be cheerleading AgentForce
Given what I know about Salesforce’s propensity to nickel-and-dime 🪙 (TF) out of their customers and their equally strong propensity for solutions with rigidity baked into the use cases... do I…
'Clicks vs code' is a false dichotomy
I regret to inform you that “clicks v code” is a false dichotomy. It oversimplifies tool choice into a sales slogan meant to spark emotion more than deliver insight. Both declarative configuration…
Vibe-coder results say more about the coder than the AI
“I used AI just like an amateur vibe-coder and got amateur vibe-coder results. Therefore, AI is useless.” A common take I see on here that likely tells me more about how someone codes without AI than…
What training a pigeon taught me about bug tickets
I spent a semester at NYU training a pigeon. Here’s what it taught me about troubleshooting bug tickets. Each of us got one pigeon and a semester to train it to perform a sequence of three actions…
The 'security consultant' who presented my diagram as their own. Twice
A "security consultant" once took the security diagram I created (because they never made one after being asked repeatedly) and recreated it component-for-component in another format. Then presented…
Underengineering: the low-code trap that feels like speed
Underengineering is a chronic issue in Salesforce and other no-/low-code platforms. Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to weave webs (that’s how the spiders 🕷️ say it). Same exact…
I thought I was bad at sales. Turns out I'm just not a scumbag
I thought I was bad at sales. Turns out, I’m just not an unethical scumbag. And sales is not inherently unethical. It’s strange that I believed that, considering I personally landed every contract…
Finance software: equal parts best practice and black magic
Software in finance is its own beast. Behind many shiny front ends lurk ancient systems and security processes equal parts best practice & black magic. That service that provides a single API to…
Salesforce is easy until it isn't — and that's where we thrive
Salesforce is easy… until it isn’t. Until you hit governor limits. Learn SoQL is inbred SQL, and them cousins were *close*. Discover that some legacy objects have “special” rules. Until your async…
Before you buy Salesforce's new Shiny Thing, remember the old ones
AgentOmniWhatever is the current Shiny Thing Salesforce would like you to be excited about. Here’s how *some* of Salesforce’s past Shiny Things played out. They’re often focused on addressing…
That Salesforce OAuth hole wasn't a surprise — it was tech debt
Baloney. That OAuth vulnerability was known at Salesforce, of that I am certain. But CTOs / COOs- when you e-signed with Salesforce did you know that, until about a month ago, anyone with a…
After 8 Financial Services Cloud projects, my advice: don't
8 Salesforce Financial Services Cloud projects. Declarative and coding enhancements. Mostly greenfield implementations. And I caution against it. Spoiler, and no surprise to anyone familiar with…
Why I design solutions my clients never need me to touch again
If I’m being honest, I really don’t want to work with my clients any more than I have to. You want a tweak to what I built you 5 months ago? Sounds boring, I have moved on to other things. Which is…
Using AI to reverse-engineer years of user stories from a Salesforce org
I had the idea of using AI to reverse engineer years worth of user stories from the code / metadata / documentation of a Salesforce org. Ryan McCloskey, as he so often does, took that idea and…
An accidental career in financial services — and why I'm leaning in
My background in financial services was pretty accidental. I was at NYU studying Psychology with a focus in animal behavior when I landed an internship at Credit Suisse for a major data center…
No, your Zapier integration user doesn't need system admin rights
Today a vendor told me her “understanding” was that we had to give system admin rights to a Zapier integration user… and demanded it be done by tomorrow. I immediately (and perhaps a bit…
Layoffs 'because of AI'? You're taking salespeople at their word
The incredulity with which people accept that layoffs are “because of AI” annoys me. Do you really take everything CEOs say at face value? They’re salespeople. “It's progress from AI!” sounds better…
You're a line on Big Tech's ledger — build your own thing instead
Mass layoffs accelerating disillusionment with the Big Tech companies lately. A long-time diet of dystopic sci-fi novels perhaps prepared me for marketing departments projecting well-wishes & caring…
From S-control hacks to Forcelandia: my accidental marketing story
The first marketing I ever did for Platy IT... was accidental. I wasn't even thinking about starting my own consultancy yet—I just wanted to show off some cool things I’d built for my then employer,…
I'm not bad at sales — I'm bad at sleazy sales
OMG, did a sales person lie to you? Shocking... tell me more. I kid. Sort of. For years I thought I was terrible at sales. Even after sustaining a business by selling my own services, I still called…
160 GB of PDFs, one week, and a quiet escape from Salesforce storage
Salesforce file storage ain’t cheap. That's what we all thought as we hit a storage shortage (say that five times fast) right as my team was tasked with mass-generating another ~160 GB of…
Leave the em-dashes in: AI is a tool, not a ghostwriter
I—wrote—this—all—by—myself. That's to everyone on here I've seen with a righteous speech about refusing to read posts that contain an em-dash. Aside from the rude slight to actual professional…
We're getting out of Salesforce — who's coming with us?
I’ve been working on the Salesforce platform for an uncomfortably long time. Granted, I've worked with a number of other platforms and languages along the way, but at this point, Salesforce is pretty…
Why I'm plotting a platform for DIY captive insurance
I've been a little obsessed with the concept of captive insurance ever since I built Salesforce solutions for a captive insurance company. It’s a niche market, so you likely haven’t heard of it, but…
MuleSoft's undocumented connectors are a liability in the LLM era
MuleSoft’s poorly documented connectors — GraphQL, Snowflake, Salesforce (in my personal order of annoyance) — don’t just land in the now overflowing “Salesforce doesn’t GAF about customers or…
Replit deleted your prod database? The danger was never the AI
Prompting Replit directly against production is no less fantastical thinking than looking to Santa Claus to run your supply chain. I keep seeing takes about how that Replit production database…
AI lets bad developers suck faster — end-to-end skills still win
Important context on the impact of LLMs on software developers. A lot of developers suck at the non-syntax-generating aspects of software development. Many kind of suck at syntax generating. And…
The Power of Three: why Workbits will be SaaS after all
The Power of Three. That’s what Michael Nimetz called it when he told me how the right trio of people can build something better than the sum of their parts. Not just in skill — but in momentum. 🌀…
My quest for a soup-to-nuts SDLC tool ends at Google Docs + Linear
My long quest for a software project management tool that elegantly supports the soup-to-nuts software development lifecycle with clarity and traceability: Business analysis → Design → Build → Test →…
Vibe coding with guardrails puts bespoke tools in nonprofit budgets
Some of the most satisfying projects I’ve worked on were quick wins 🏆 for nonprofits — teams who couldn’t afford a long-term engagement but needed ease of use and efficiency yesterday. ✅ A trigger…
Who writes your software matters — and my team proves it
Your team matters. When I stepped away from my one-woman consultancy in 2021, it was with the aim of expanding my professional circle — to find the kind of brilliant, grounded developers who thrive…
Salesforce peeps: there's more to AI than Agentforce
Hey, Salesforce peeps. There’s more to AI than Agentforce. Hard to believe, I know, but we can use LLMs for things other than building Case-creating chatbots. Almost 20 years working on Salesforce…