From Meta to Bluesky and Back Out Again
I left Meta in July 2023. The plan was a long break, but Bluesky pulled me in instead—it sat right at the intersection of React, open source, and my long-standing Twitter habit. I spent nearly two years there, getting deeper into React Native, helping polish the app, and doing a bit of engineering management along the way. Eventually it became clear that the break I originally wanted couldn’t wait any longer, so I left and have been floating for a few months.
Right now I’m in-between things, and it’s an odd place to be. I’m not sure what’s going to happen to my skillset, both as a software engineer and as someone who teaches. The way both of those get done is shifting under our feet, and I don’t have an obvious next move. So for now, I’m watching and waiting.
Writing Again
I’ve brought this blog back to life, mostly to write about React Server Components. I had a number of ideas—JSX over the wire, impossible components, what use client actually does, one roundtrip per navigation, progressive JSON—that I wanted to point people to with stable URLs. There are a few more posts in the tank, and I’d eventually like to write about atproto and Lean, but I can’t quite shift my mindset away from RSC yet. Maybe I need to exhaust that topic first.
A Little Consulting
Per the headline here: I’m now doing a small amount of consulting. Not writing code, but offering technical guidance in UI engineering, mostly around React and React Native. If you or your team are facing architectural or performance challenges, need to dig into specific technical issues, or want to talk through higher-level product and infra approaches, I may be able to help. I’ve been fortunate to work with strong engineers at both Meta and Bluesky, and I enjoy passing along what I’ve learned.
The format is a 1:1 hourly call. Start with a single session; if it’s useful, we can extend to several or set up follow-ups. This probably fits best for technical leaders or very motivated learners. It is not free, which apparently needs stating. If that sounds interesting, email me at [email protected] and I’ll reply if I can help.
