•8 min read•
aiskill-atrophy
How AI Killed My Passion for Programming
A personal story about passion, skill atrophy, and what we lost when we stopped writing code — with hard lessons from DDD Europe 2026.
Distributed Systems Architect & DDD Consultant
Systems that scale. Engineers who still think.
Twelve years building event-driven platforms — payments, gaming, banking — including a distributed system on 600+ Kubernetes pods moving millions of euros a month. I also help teams adopt AI across the SDLC without losing the judgment that keeps systems alive. I use AI every day. I still think we've all gone slightly crazy.
Background
Distributed Systems Expertise
12+ years architecting event-driven systems, with 6+ years focused on distributed architecture and domain-driven design.
I build the messaging-heavy platforms that businesses actually run on — payments, billing, reporting — and I make the domain model match how the business really works, not how the org chart wishes it did.
I help organizations evolve from monolithic systems to distributed architectures using CQRS, event sourcing, and messaging patterns. My approach emphasizes observability, modularity, and long-term maintainability.
Domains
- Gaming & Entertainment
- Financial Services
- Payment Systems
- High‑Volume Analytics
- Banking Infrastructure
Core Expertise
- Domain‑Driven Design
- Event‑Driven Architecture
- CQRS & Event Sourcing
- Messaging Infrastructure
- Architecture Reviews
System Architecture
Domain-driven architecture planning, bounded contexts, and integration contracts.
Distributed Architecture
CQRS, event sourcing, messaging patterns, and delivery guarantees.
Technical Leadership
Mentoring, standards, and architecture reviews across teams and domains.
Services
What I do
Two practices: hard distributed-systems work, and keeping your AI adoption from quietly destroying your engineering team. Use AI for the boring 70 percent. Guard the interesting 30.
AI Adoption & SDLC Reviews
Sane AI adoption: reviews of AI-assisted SDLC, guardrails for AI-generated code, and practices that keep engineers sharp.
DDD & Workshops
Context mapping, Event Storming, and tactical DDD to align software with the business.
Distributed Architecture
CQRS, event sourcing, messaging patterns, delivery guarantees, and observability.
Architecture Validation
Independent reviews, risk assessment, due diligence, and modernization roadmaps.
Modernization
Strangler Fig migrations, anti‑corruption layers, modular monoliths.
Leadership & Enablement
Team leadership, hiring, mentoring, engineering standards and delivery governance.
Writing
From the Blog
Essays on distributed systems, DDD, and using AI without losing your brain.
Got a system nobody can fully explain?
Whether it grew that way over ten years or an AI generated it last sprint — I can help. First call is free and I'll tell you if I'm not the right person.