The Balanced Engineer Newsletter

March 2026 • Issue # 44

Hello, March!

In the interest of prioritizing balance in my life, I skipped this newsletter in February, so now I have a lot of extra stuff to share!

This year has started out great. I'm enjoying what I'm working on, the Overcommitted community is going well, and I was just promoted to Staff Software Engineer at GitHub!

In the last two months I attended The Pragmatic Summit, and I still have several more events planned for the next few months that I'm looking forward to.

🔧 Technical Excellence

The Cost of Leaving a Software Rewrite "On the Table" by Robby Russell
Summary: Robby explores how the mere suggestion of "we might rewrite this someday" can quietly erode a team's momentum, even when nobody actually decides to rewrite anything. Once a system is treated as provisional, engineers stop investing in it. Refactors get deferred, tests feel less urgent, documentation falls behind. He argues that when a team decides not to rewrite, that decision needs a spine — capture it, share it, reinforce it.

Why this resonates: I've seen this firsthand. Not shutting down open-ended rewrite discussions can lead folks to put off tough decisions that need to be made for the health of the system. The rewrite fantasy becomes an excuse to avoid the hard, unglamorous work of improving what you already have. Being realistic about not prioritizing rewrites does everyone a service, because it gives the team permission to actually care about the current codebase again.

🔄 Process & Culture

Building An Elite AI Engineering Culture In 2026 by Chris Roth
Summary: A deep dive into what separates high-performing engineering teams in 2026, drawing from research and case studies at companies like Linear, Cursor, Vercel, and Stripe. Chris argues that AI is a mirror, not an equalizer — it accelerates high-performing orgs and unravels struggling ones. The article covers spec-driven development, the rise of design engineering, stacked PRs, and the shift from story points to cycle time.

Why this resonates: The core insight here hit me hard: AI speeds things up and will amplify whatever the existing culture is. If your culture sucks, then AI just makes it that much worse. That's a pretty compelling argument for investing in culture and team health before throwing more AI at the problem. The companies winning with AI aren't the ones adopting it fastest — they're the ones that already had the discipline, ownership, and taste to use it well.

🧠 Mental Models & Problem Solving

How I AI Podcast by Claire Vo
Summary: How I AI is a podcast from Claire Vo (part of Lenny's Podcast network) where guests share specific, practical, and impactful ways they've learned to use AI in their work and life. Each episode is about 30 minutes, often with live screen sharing, and covers real workflows you can copy immediately. Guests range from product leaders to engineers to entrepreneurs, all showing how they've actually integrated AI tools into their day-to-day.

Why this resonates: I love hearing how other folks are solving problems with AI. It's a completely new skill set for me, so seeing how other people are approaching it — the specific tools, the workflows, the mental models — has been incredibly helpful. Claire does a great job of keeping things practical and grounded, which is exactly what I need right now as I'm building my own AI-assisted workflows.

⚖️ Work-Life Integration

AI Doesn't Reduce Work — It Intensifies It from Harvard Business Review
Summary: Based on an eight-month study at a US technology company, researchers found that AI tools don't reduce work — they consistently intensify it. Employees worked at a faster pace, took on a broader scope of tasks, and extended work into more hours of the day, often without being asked. The initial productivity surge can give way to workload creep, cognitive fatigue, burnout, and weakened decision-making. The authors recommend companies adopt an "AI practice" with intentional pauses and norms around AI use.

Why this resonates: Oh boy, do I feel this one. While I've dramatically increased my own productivity, I'm not working any fewer hours. In fact, if anything, I'm working more. And I need this reminder that the whole point is to find time for more learning and more peace in my day when AI can help increase my productivity. If I'm just filling the freed-up hours with more work, I'm missing the entire point. This is my personal challenge for the rest of 2026 — use the productivity gains to create more space, not just more output.

What I've Been Building

A quick look at what I've been working on lately

Blog posts

• 2025 in Review
• AI Has an Image Problem
• I guess I'm AI-pilled now?
• Living in the inflection point
• Start where you are: A practical guide to building with AI

Overcommitted Podcast

• Ep. 41 | Building Without the Buzzwords: Real Talk on System Design with Bassem Dghaidi
• Ep. 42 | Making Silly Software with Christina Martinez
• Ep. 43 | Accessibility, Fiber Arts, and ADHD with Abbey Perini
• Ep. 44 | AI, Burnout, and the Myth of the 10x Developer
• Ep. 45 | Sustainability in Software Development: Robby Russell on Tech Debt and Engineering Culture
• Ep. 46 | Interactive Computer Science Education: Sam Rose on Visual Learning & Developer Teaching
• Ep. 47 | From Score to Source Code: Non-Traditional Careers, Rust, and Embracing What You Don't Know Yet
• Ep. 48 | How Staff Engineers Impact Software Projects and Programmer Productivity with Sean Goedecke

Join us on Discord!

Come hang out with the Overcommitted community on Discord! We're chatting about engineering, career growth, and all the things we're learning together.

Have comments or questions about this newsletter? Or just want to be internet friends? Send me an email at brittany@balancedengineer.com or reach out on Bluesky or LinkedIn. Until next month!