Gerriet Backer

Building Software, Enabling Teams

Software developer and engineering leader. Based in north-western Germany.
Two decades of building software; now freelancing after a Principal Software Engineer role at an AI startup.
Writing about what stays human when AI gets smarter.

Essays

When Everyone Can Execute July 2026 Execution is getting cheap. The advantage moves to whoever holds the context.
The Bottleneck Is Not the Tool February 2026 The tools are ready. The people and organizations are still catching up.
Thinking with AI January 2026 AI is most useful before the answer - when the problem is still fuzzy and underspecified.
Why Experience Compounds January 2026 Agentic tools haven't made experience obsolete. They've changed how it applies.