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.

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Essays
  • Deliberate Friction August 2026 Delegating to agents erodes the skills it depends on. Some work is worth doing yourself, on purpose.
  • 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.