Who wrote this? Why?

Good questions. Let me introduce myself.

My name is Peter. I've been a Senior Software Engineer for over a decade. I've architected healthcare products that measurably improved patient outcomes and founded a food data company that serves nearly a million records to tens of thousands of users.

Ask me to write Bubble Sort on a whiteboard, though, and I'd freeze. My working knowledge of Big O notation is basically: don't nest your loops.

No computer science degree. No formal theory. I got my start on a dining room computer in Wisconsin, and by traditional standards, I should be behind. But that path taught me something I didn't expect: real expertise is less about a library of memorized facts and more about the confidence to figure things out when you need to. Without formal training, I had to build things that worked now—prototype to learn, ship to discover what mattered. It forced me to focus on understanding the problem, caring about the user, and caring about the result.

What I'm Sharing Here

This site collects field notes from that journey: navigating ambiguity when there are no right answers, building software that survives contact with reality, spotting opportunities others miss, and sustaining a career without burning out or losing yourself to team dynamics.

My goal is to demystify the senior engineering path and validate the messy way most of us actually work. Effective engineering doesn't require knowing everything. It requires the willingness to figure it out.