Erik Zaadi

The tales of a coding manager addicted to dad jokes

Recent Posts

2026-02-08 | 9min
Why Penguins Don't Build Nests in Trees and Why That Matters for AI

A different kind of talk

I recently had the opportunity to speak at my kid’s class about AI.

It was not a conference talk. There were no slides about model architectures or leadership frameworks. There were 12 year olds, lots of opinions, and very little patience for fluff.

Which, in hindsight, was perfect.

TL;DR:

You can find:

  • the full source code here
  • the slides from the session here

Feel free to reuse or adapt them.

2025-11-07 | 5min
Putting the AI in TUI: When You Have 43 Minutes and a Commit Stuck in Your Head How a busy engineering manager finds real coding flow in 43-minute windows, powered by Vim, tmux, Devbox, and a terminal-native AI assistant. Cold brew optional, terminal required.
Putting the AI in TUI: When You Have 43 Minutes and a Commit Stuck in Your Head
2025-08-17 | 4min
From Clippy to Slippy: The Perils and Perks of AI in Management If you were around in the early 2000s, you probably remember Clippy, the overly eager paperclip who popped up in Word to offer ‘helpful’ tips like how to write a letter (spoiler: nobody asked). Fast forward to today, and Clippy’s spiritual descendants are everywhere, only now they’re called AI assistants. As a manager, I’ve found that leaning on AI can feel like going from Clippy to Slippy: sometimes it smooths the path and saves me hours, and other times it slips me into awkward mistakes, tone-deaf messages, or content that reads like it was written by… well, a paperclip. This post is my testimony of both the perks and perils of letting AI sneak into management work.
2025-07-26 | 5min
EM <> PM: A Song of Ice and Fire How an engineering manager and a product manager forged trust, shared ownership, and high-velocity delivery — without burning down the roadmap.
2025-07-10 | 3min
Markdown My Words! S3 You Later PowerPoint Building, editing, and deploying slide decks with nothing but Markdown, Bash, and dad puns.
2025-07-06 | 2min
Proudly Unnecessary: A Leadership Tale from the Couch What happens when a manager steps away? A story about trust, resilience, and building a team that scales without you.
2025-06-22 | 2min
LAN Party Guide 2.0: Warsow vs Warfork Your go-to setup guide for hosting classic fast-paced LAN FPS games using Warsow and Warfork—especially if you're on a Mac.
2025-05-04 | 4min
The Silver Bullet for Conference Presentations? There Is No Bullet

Ever sat through a slide deck that felt like reading a spreadsheet on stage?

Presentations are hard — but they don’t have to be painful.

You need have the magic schtick that helps you with the value you want to share.

The problem

Most company templates for presentations might be great for sales pitching on zoom,

BUT, they just don’t work for a stage and crowd.

Slides crammed with KPIs and roadmap bullet points might kill on Zoom. On stage? They kill attention.

2024-11-17 | 2min
Onboarding vim'ers Because people deserve to see the light
2022-07-09 | 0min | DRAFT
A Moderator and Mentor's Guide for Doing Public Talks

Intro

Finding what to talk about

CFP outline clickbait title

Working on your talk

Story
Talking
Iterating
Getting feedback
Communicating with your moderator
WIIFM
Dry runs
Slides

Slides

Whoami
Use less bullets
Typos
Correct use of screen estate
Segways
Planning for projector
Live demos, the DO's and DON'Ts
Summary / Key takeaways
bite the bullet, be the bard

Preparing for the conference

Backups
Take some time off rehersals

At the conference