Career
To My 20-Year-Ago Self: 7 Things That Would Change My Career
With 20 years of system architecture experience, I share the turning points of my career and 7 things I wish I had known looking back. This is not advice, but…
#kariyer
81 posts found.
Career
Is a University Degree Still Necessary for Software?
With 20 years of system architecture experience, I examine the place of a university degree in the software world and its pragmatic realities.
Career
Should I Become a Manager? No One Tells You It's a Reversible Decision
Transitioning to a management position isn't a one-way street as commonly believed. My own experiences show that returning to technical roles is possible and.
Career
Choosing an AI Code Assistant: Copilot, Cursor, and Claude Code
Examining the effectiveness of AI code assistants in software development, comparing GitHub Copilot, Cursor, and Claude Code based on my own experiences to.
Career
I Became a Manager and Returned: Do I Regret It?
The reasons behind my transition from a management position back to a technical career, the challenges I faced, and the lessons I learned.
Career
Companies Quietly Hiring Juniors While Everyone Fears AI
While the rise of AI sparks fears of job losses, many companies continue to invest in junior talent. This post explores the reasons behind this trend and its.
Career
The Candidate Who Impressed Me Most in a Job Interview
I've conducted hundreds of job interviews. Most candidates had memorized technical information, but only one truly impressed me. Why? Because of their.
Career
What Does It Mean To Be 'Senior' In The Age of AI?
In the AI-transformed tech world, the meaning of 'senior' is changing. Experience, problem-solving, and workflow mastery are more important than prompt.
Career
The Heaviest AI Users Atrophy the Fastest: The Skill Atrophy Trap
I examine how over-reliance on AI tools dulls our professional skills, with examples from my 20 years of field experience. In the long run, this…
Career
Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me When I Was a Junior
5 critical lessons distilled from my 20 years of career experience, which I'd tell my junior self.
Career
No Longer a Bricklayer, You're the Foreman: The Quiet Evolution
The developer's role is quietly shifting from writing code to becoming a 'foreman' who holistically manages systems and workflows. This transformation.
Career
The Price Tag of Self-Hosting: A Comparison with Cloud Costs
I compare the costs of self-hosting versus cloud computing based on my experiences. Real numbers, trade-offs, and which is more profitable in different.
Career
Two Distinct Software Developer Markets in Turkey: 95,000 TL vs.
Exploring the software developer salary gap in Turkey, the profound differences between the 95,000 TL and 175,000 TL levels, and the systemic reasons behind.
Career
2026 Technical Interview Broken: 38% of Candidates Use Invisible AI
The 38% rate of candidates cheating in technical interviews with unseen AI tools questions the future of hiring processes. This situation...
Career
Passkeys: Enterprise Adaptation and Individual Use Cases
Exploring the potential of Passkeys in both the individual and corporate world, their technical details, and the real challenges in adaptation processes, based.
Career
5 Self-Hosting Projects for Infrastructure Specialists: Real-World
I share my experiences with 5 critical self-hosting projects that infrastructure specialists can undertake on their own servers to gain real-world experience.
Career
They Cut the First Step of the Ladder: The Junior Developer Crisis
A pragmatic perspective from my 20 years of field experience on the difficulties junior developers face in finding jobs and the reasons behind this situation.
Career
Have AI Tools Made Me a Better Engineer?
In light of 20 years of experience, I discuss the impact of AI tools on my engineering career, the areas they've accelerated, and the importance of critical.
Career
You Think AI Speeds You Up by 24%; It Actually Slows You Down by 19%
I compare AI's promised acceleration in software development with the actual decrease in productivity observed in the field. Why did we slow down, and how can.
Career
Monolith vs. Modular Monolith: An Indie Hacker's Choice
As an indie hacker, I explore software architecture choices: balancing the easy start of a Monolith with the flexibility of a Modular Monolith, based on my own.
Career
The First Thing I Look for When Hiring: Talent or Fit?
With 20 years of system architecture experience, I look for much more than just what's on a candidate's resume. What catches my eye first during hiring? Based.
Career
Building Your Own Platform vs. Using a Ready-Made Solution: Lessons
With 20 years of system architecture experience, I compare the cost of building your own platform against the advantages of using ready-made solutions. An.
Career
Managing Cardinality Explosion in Observability in 3 Steps
Strategies for detecting, filtering, and managing the high cardinality issue that inflates costs and disks in metric infrastructures.
Career
The Biggest Lie in the Software World: 'Perfect Code' or Real Success…
With 20 years of experience, I'm revealing the biggest lie in the software world: how chasing perfect code hinders real success and the pragmatic approach…
Career
20 Years in IT. Here's What I Still Don't Know
With 20 years of experience in system architecture and operations, I'm still discovering and learning many things in the IT world. In this post, I'll share.
Career
As a System Architect, I Wish I Had Learned This Sooner
In my 20-year career, one of my most valuable lessons wasn't about technical knowledge, but about understanding my own limits and the cost of saying 'yes'.
Career
Distributed Lock Alternatives: Which One to Use in Which Scenario?
Take a deep dive into the alternatives, use cases, and trade-offs of locking mechanisms in distributed systems.
Career
Distributed Systems Idempotency Design: 3 Practical Ways
I explain the three practical idempotency strategies I use to prevent duplicate requests in distributed architectures, with production experiences and code.
Career
My Biggest Entrepreneurial Mistakes
In my 20 years of system architecture and software development experience, I've made some big entrepreneurial mistakes beyond just technical knowledge. Here.
Career
The Support Bill of Choosing an Offline-First Mobile Architecture
I analyze how adopting an offline-first architecture in mobile applications increases long-term support costs rather than just development efforts.
Career
Kernel CVE Response Pattern: A Practical 3-Step Approach
Learn how to respond quickly and effectively to critical CVEs in the kernel with a practical 3-step approach.
Career
Kernel CVE Response: 3 Priorities for Infrastructure Professionals
I analyze 3 steps infrastructure managers should prioritize when responding to critical kernel CVEs, based on field experience.
Career
Why Network Certifications Are Insufficient for Your Career
I explore how far network certifications can actually carry you in your career, and why field experience and deep knowledge are much more critical.
Career
Optimizing Supply Chain Data Flow: 3 Steps for ERP
A 3-step guide to optimizing supply chain data flow in manufacturing ERPs, covering database, transaction queues, and network segmentation.
Career
Drawing Technical Boundaries in Network Consulting in 3 Steps
I examine what happens when we don't define the boundaries of our work in infrastructure and network consulting, in 3 steps from L2/L3 layers to DNS.
Career
BurnCPU's First 100 Users: The Most Expensive Mistake of My Career
With 20 years of system architecture experience, I explain how the most expensive mistake of my career wasn't a line of code, but a 'yes'. A thought-provoking.
Career
Mobile App API Versioning: The Career Cost of Technical Debt
An in-depth guide to mobile application API versioning strategies, the impact of technical debt on careers and projects, and best practices.
Career
VPN Dual-Stack: An Unnecessary Burden on Your Career
I analyze the complexities and operational costs of VPN dual-stack implementations based on my own experiences.
Career
How the BurnCPU Idea Came About: A Career Story
I'm sharing candidly how the 'BurnCPU' idea, one of the turning points in my career, was born, the problems I faced, and what it taught me.
Career
Prioritizing Monitoring and Alerting: My 3-Step Pragmatic Guide
Striking the right balance between monitoring and alerting in system and application operations has always been challenging. In this post, I'll explain my.
Career
Why I Built My Own Social Network
One of the biggest decisions in my career was to build my own social network. I'm sharing why I embarked on this journey, my expectations, and what I learned.
Career
Multi-tenant ERP Solutions: Why Are the True Costs Overlooked?
I explore the operational and technical challenges behind the seemingly attractive initial costs of multi-tenant ERP solutions, drawing from my own experiences.
Career
Why There's No Real Salary Data in Turkey
Examining how hard it is to get salary data in Turkey, in light of my personal observations and data experience.
Life
The Personal Cost of a Critical System Migration: Preparation and…
Learn about the impact of a critical system migration project not only on technology but also on your personal life — and how to manage the process.
Life
The Emotional Weight of System Outages: An SRE's Nightmare
System outages aren't just a technical problem for an SRE — they're a serious emotional burden. In this post, we explore how to cope with these challenges…
Life
The Burden of Being the Only Expert: A Sysadmin's Loneliness
Discover the challenges of being the sole expert as a system administrator, the loneliness it brings, and strategies for coping with that burden. Work-life…
Life
Imposter Syndrome in Critical Systems: The Architect's Inner War
Explore the battle critical-system architects fight with imposter syndrome and strategies to manage that inner war. Causes, effects, and ways forward.
Career
Incident Walkthrough and Operational Signals in a Platform Interview
An incident walkthrough framework and scoring rubric for measuring a candidate's real production reflex in SRE/Platform/Infra interviews.
Career
Managing Operational Debt with a Toil Budget
A toil budget approach for sustainable operations: measuring repetitive manual work, making it visible, and protecting time for improvement.
Career
Designing Pre-Incident Drill Narratives for Technical Leaders
A leadership approach that turns incident drills from purely technical tests into shared decision-making and communication practice.
Career
A Tacit Knowledge Inventory Cadence for Senior Engineers
A practical cadence for surfacing the implicit operations knowledge that keeps systems alive — without leaving it tied to a handful of people.
Career
From Alert Fatigue to a Learning Loop — A Guide for Tech Leads
A leadership approach that ties alert noise to team learning, on-call health, and operational quality — instead of just shaving the count down.
Career
Post-Change Confidence Refresh Sessions for Tech Leads
A short, measured, leadership-focused session model for rebuilding the team's delivery confidence after a risky release.
Career
Decision Delegation in Sev2 Incidents — A Tech Lead's Playbook
A clear framework of roles, thresholds, and communication paths for spreading the tech lead's decision load during Sev2 incidents.
Career
Translating Technical Risk for Management — A Tech Lead's Practice
A leadership practice that frames technical risk through decision impact and business outcome — not through alarm language.
Career
A Technical Debt Negotiation Framework for Senior Engineers
An approach that turns technical debt from a complaint topic into something negotiable across budget, risk, and delivery planning.
Career
A Blameless Escalation Framework for Technical Leaders
A blameless leadership framework that takes escalation decisions out of personal reflexes and manages them with clear thresholds.
Career
Decision Log Discipline for Senior Engineers
A decision log approach that lifts architectural and operational choices out of personal memory and turns them into something a whole team can carry.
Career
Resetting Priorities After an Incident — A Practice for Tech Leads
How to rebalance recovery, debt, and delivery after an outage without blindly inflating the backlog.
Career
A Guide to Becoming a Freelance Developer
A guide to building sustainable income and reputation in freelance work through niche selection, pricing, scope management, and a reliable delivery rhythm.
Career
Runbook Debt Management for Senior Engineers
A technical leadership approach to runbook debt management that moves operational memory off individuals and onto the system.
Career
A Service Ownership Handover Protocol for Senior Engineers
A handover model that moves service knowledge into operable contracts rather than individuals strengthens continuity in technical leadership.
Career
Capacity Negotiation Discipline for Technical Leaders
A clear framework for the technical leadership practice of negotiating capacity without getting crushed between delivery pressure and operational load.
Career
An Operational Health Review Cadence for Technical Leaders
A weekly leadership cadence that matures operational culture by reading alarm noise, runbook debt, and team load on the same dashboard.
Career
Release Discipline Without Change Windows for Senior Engineers
A technical leadership framework for safe releases in enterprise teams without depending on change windows.
Career
Designing Incident Command Rotation for Senior Engineers
A technical framework for designing command rotation to scale incident load without depending on the reflexes of a few people.
Career
Operational Delegation Design for Senior Engineers
A delegation model for safely transferring critical operations knowledge instead of keeping it locked in one head.
Career
Incident Communication Architecture for Technical Leaders
A communication model, role boundaries and decision rhythm that accelerate cross-team information flow during outages.
Career
Resistance Mapping in Platform Migrations for Technical Leaders
A resistance mapping approach for spotting unspoken team objections early during platform transformations.
Career
Change Approval via Risk Contracts for Technical Leaders
A technical leadership approach that turns change approval from a bureaucratic signature into an explicit risk contract.
Career
Shadow On-Call and Skill Transfer in Technical Leadership
A mentorship-driven operating model that uses shadow on-call to spread on-call knowledge across the team instead of locking it in one person.
Career
Operational Calmness Practice for Technical Leaders
A practical framework for technical leadership behaviors that stay calm under incidents, change pressure, and team tension.
Career
The Tech Lead’s Translation Role in Platform Transformation
The technical leader’s responsibility for creating a shared language between engineering, operations, and business units in platform transformation projects.
Technology
Programming Languages Worth Learning in 2026
A practical framework for picking a language not by 'trend' but by production use-case, team cost, and operability.
Career
Does GitHub Copilot Make Developers Lazy? My Perspective
With 20 years of experience, I question how AI tools like GitHub Copilot impact developer productivity and whether they lead to laziness.
Career
The Thing I Wish I Had Given Up On Sooner in My Career
A lesson distilled from twenty years of experience: My biggest mistakes weren't technical, but not knowing when to give up. How I fell into the perfectionism.
Life
Which Technology Did I Trash This Week?
With 20 years of experience, what does 'trashing' a technology mean to me? A personal take on the allure of shiny innovations versus real-world pragmatism…
Life
What I Understood Late When Burnout Hit
When I reached the brink of burnout in my 20-year career, I realized the biggest lesson wasn't a technical error, but not knowing my own limits. My experiences.
Career
What Happened After My Mastodon Account Was Suspended?
A personal experience on the limits of free speech on social media and how platform decisions impacted my career.
Career
There Is No Such Thing as a Perfect Product: The Naked Truth of 20
With 20 years of system architecture and software development experience, Mustafa Erbay deconstructs the 'perfect product' myth. Pragmatic approaches and.