Vedesh Padal

You are what you cultivate when no one is watching.

🧘🏻‍♂️ fixing myself

the worst thing u can have at work is a non-technical engineering manager

CTO: We lost our strongest backend engineer today. Founder: The one handling infra and outages? CTO: Yes. Founder: Did a bigger company hire him? CTO: No. Founder: Then why quit? CTO: He said he was exhausted. Founder: From the workload? CTO: Not exactly. From watching the same database bottleneck, same queue lag, same deployment mistakes come back every month. Founder: That happens in fast moving teams. CTO: He agreed. What he could not accept was that every fix was temporary because nobody wanted to slow down and clean the system properly. Founder: We had deadlines. CTO: He had standards. Founder: So he left because the work was hard? CTO: No. He left because he was not doing engineering anymore. He was just containing damage. The best engineers do not hate hard problems. They hate preventable problems that management keeps normalizing.

The longer you wait to build the life you want, the more likely you are to end up with something else. Build now, or the world will build a cage for you later.

filter the noise.

The engineering role is shifting toward a director position. It means the engineer must focus on the big picture and ensure the AI delivers correct results with minimal changes and irritation. Writing code is no longer relevant. What matters is how all the puzzle pieces are joined together.

@BlueDartCares It's been more than an hour since I sent the detailed message via DM. No reply, what is this pathetic service?!! @BlueDart_

@vedesh_padal Dear Vedesh, we regret the inconvenience caused. We request you to kindly connect with us via DM so that we can assist you further. i.ki.show/47C7D43FE4

@BlueDartCares Very poor experience with Blue Dart. My Samsung refrigerator shipment (50937289432) was expected on Mar 5 but has been stuck at ARMOOR hub for 2+ days with status "UNDELIVERED SHIPMENT HELD AT LOCATION". No delivery attempt yet. Please escalate and deliver today.

@BlueDartCares Sent, half an hour ago, please check

@BlueDartCares When I enquired at the ARMOOR Blue Dart office, they said they have not received "transport approval" because it is a heavy package. The shipment has already been at the nearest hub for 2+ days.

@BlueDartCares On Mar 5 evening I even received an "Out for Delivery" message, but within an hour it was marked "CNEE REFUSED ID/OTP NOT SHARED – INCORRECT" without any call or delivery attempt.

software is still about thinking software has always been about taking ambiguous human needs and crystallizing them into precise, interlocking systems. the craft is in the breakdown: which abstractions to create, where boundaries should live, how pieces communicate. coding with ai today creates a new trap: the illusion of speed without structure. you can generate code fast, but without clear system architecture – the real boundaries, the actual invariants, the core abstractions – you end up with a pile that works until it doesn't. it's slop because there's no coherent mental model underneath. ai doesn't replace systems thinking – it amplifies the cost of not doing it. if you don't know what you want structurally, ai fills gaps with whatever pattern it's seen most. you get generic solutions to specific problems. coupled code where you needed clean boundaries. three different ways of doing the same thing because you never specified the one way. as Cursor handles longer tasks, the gap between "vaguely right direction" and "precisely understood system" compounds exponentially. when agents execute 100 steps instead of 10, your role becomes more important, not less. the skill shifts from "writing every line" to "holding the system in your head and communicating its essence": - define boundaries – what are the core abstractions? what should this component know? where does state live? - specify invariants – what must always be true? what are the constants and defaults that make the system work? - guide decomposition – how should this break down? what's the natural structure? what's stable vs likely to change? - maintain coherence – as ai generates more code, you ensure it fits the mental model, follows patterns, respects boundaries. this is what great architects and designers do: they don't write every line, but they hold the system design and guide toward coherence. agents are just very fast, very literal team members. the danger is skipping the thinking because ai makes it feel optional. people prompt their way into codebases they don't understand. can't debug because they never designed it. can't extend because there's no structure, just accumulated features. people who think deeply about systems can now move 100x faster. you spend time on the hard problem – understanding what you're building and why – and ai handles mechanical translation. you're not bogged down in syntax, so you stay in the architectural layer longer. the future isn't "ai replaces programmers" or "everyone can code now." it's "people who think clearly about systems build incredibly fast, and people who don't generate slop at scale." the skill becomes: holding complexity, breaking it down cleanly, communicating structure precisely. less syntax, more systems. less implementation, more architecture. less writing code, more designing coherence. humans are great at seeing patterns, understanding tradeoffs, making judgment calls about how things should fit together. ai can't save you from unclear thinking – it just makes unclear thinking run faster.

You can try the extension: extensions.gnome.org/extension/9136… In case you are on GNOME 42-44, manually install it by switching to `legacy-gnome-42-44` branch and running the install script: github.com/vedesh-padal/m…

Built my first GNOME extension 💀 Inspired by @the2ndfloorguy's blog. Started as a copy, rebuilt from scratch with AI as my coding buddy. Now: dropdown menus, color-coded life %, birthday countdown, notifications. "Just one more feature" hits different at 2am 😅

Advice for Ages 23-28 This is the stage where life stops responding to motivation and starts responding to structure. You realize that intelligence alone is not enough and passion without direction quickly turns into frustration. This is when excuses begin to expire and responsibility quietly takes over. You will not feel ready, and waiting to feel ready is how years disappear. Most progress in this phase comes from action taken in uncertainty. The people moving ahead are not braver, they are simply willing to move while confused. Money becomes loud at this age. Not because you love it, but because life demands it. Your ideas, opinions, and awareness mean little if you cannot sustain yourself. Skills that solve problems and generate income become your true currency. Friendships start to shift. Some people grow faster, some slower, some not at all. Distance does not always mean hatred. Sometimes it simply means growth in different directions. Learn to let people evolve without resentment. Romantic choices begin to carry weight. Loneliness can push you into decisions that cost you peace, focus, and years. Choose stability over excitement and clarity over chaos. Love should add structure to your life, not confusion. Discipline becomes more important than motivation. Motivation is emotional and unreliable. Discipline is quiet and consistent. It is what carries you on days when nothing feels rewarding. Comparison will tempt you daily. Social media will make it seem like everyone is ahead. What you do not see are debts, support systems, shortcuts, and struggles. Focus on building progress, not competing with illusions. This is also the age where habits either mature or harden against you. The things you ignore now do not disappear, they compound. Your future self is watching how seriously you treat this phase. Ages 23-28 are not meant to be glamorous. They are meant to be intentional. What you build here determines how heavy or peaceful your thirties will be.

day 1 of 90

2026 CHALLENGE (FOR FUTURE SENIOR SOFTWARE ENGINEERS): 1. No tutorial hopping. Finish what you start. 2. Read real code daily (production repos, not snippets). 3. Write code every day, even if it’s 30 minutes. 4. Design one system per week on paper. 5. Read one deep tech blog or paper daily. 6. Track one metric you improved (latency, cost, reliability). 7. Write at least 5 sentences explaining why a decision was made. 8. Review your own code like a stranger wrote it. 9. Fix one non-trivial bug instead of avoiding it. 10. Learn one thing about databases, networking, or OS fundamentals daily. 11. Practice saying “I don’t know, but I’ll find out.” 12. Help a junior engineer every week. Who’s actually serious about leveling up?