Unintentionally, the syncing between this blog and my linkedin posts got broken; I will try to fix it. If I do succeed, I will try to double up the posts to arrive two a day to catch up with LinkedIn đ
Author Archives: Peter Smulovics
đ§ââïž Happy International Yoga Day! đ§ââïž
Today we stretch not only our bodiesâbut also our minds, intentions, and bandwidth.
Yoga teaches us balance, resilience, and presenceâwhich isnât so different from how we strive to architect resilient systems, balance loads across distributed networks, and stay present in ever-evolving tech stacks.
Just as yoga encourages stillness in motion, the best IT systems thrive with stability amid changeâadapting to new demands, scaling gracefully, and recovering with elegance.
đïž Yoga Sutra, Meet the DevOps Manifesto
- Breathe deeply = Monitor intentionally
- Find your center = Stay grounded in core principles
- Flow through asanas = Flow through pipelines
- Observe without judgment = Debug without blame
- Flexibility is strength = Modularity is power
So whether you’re in a data center or a downward dog, remember:
đ Inner peace and uptime are both worth striving for.
#InternationalYogaDay #MindfulTech #DigitalWellness #DevOpsZen #StretchBeyondLimits #NamasteAndDeploy

The Legacy You Build Is the Time You Give
In tech, we obsess over what we buildâplatforms, frameworks, entire empires of code. We read whitepapers at midnight and have Jira boards more complicated than international air traffic systems. But on Fatherâs Day, letâs hit pause and consider this:
đ What if the most powerful thing you ever build isnât a product⊠but a person?
Whether you’re a dad by biology, mentorship, adoption, or accidental babysitting at a hackathon, this is your reminder: your legacy is not just in commits, but in the commitments you keep – especially the ones that show up as giggles, teenage eye-rolls, or “can we play one more game?”
đšâđ» 1. The Architecture of Presence
As software engineers, we love being available. We design high-availability systems, 99.999% uptime, self-healing clusters. But as dads, the uptime looks different:
- Being there for bedtime, even if itâs just to answer 47 questions about dinosaurs.
- Showing up to school plays where your only line is clapping.
- Saying âyesâ to a messy science project on a Sunday night… because, of course, it’s due Monday morning.
Dad joke alert:
Why did the dad bring a ladder to work?
Because he heard the job was all about “raising” kids.
đ€ 2. From Coaching to Coding
Leading a team and parenting arenât as different as you’d think. Both involve:
- Explaining things 5 times in slightly different ways
- Handling occasional tantrums (some of them from adults)
- Celebrating tiny wins like theyâre moon landings
Whether you’re pair programming or teaching a kid how to tie their shoes, remember: itâs not about controlâitâs about confidence. Youâre not raising clones. Youâre helping launch independent, fully autonomous systems (that may or may not come back to ask for snacks).
Dad joke alert:
Whatâs a dadâs favorite type of code?
Re-parent-ing.
đ§Ÿ 3. Version History and Legacy
Every software project has a version history. But in life, the real changelog is in how your kids, mentees, and teammates show up in the world.
- Do they feel safe asking questions?
- Do they debug their own problems with confidence?
- Do they âcommitâ to things that matter?
Spoiler alert: No oneâs going to remember how many cloud certifications you had. But theyâll remember how you cheered for them when they made their first potato battery.
âïž 4. The Myth of Balance
Letâs be honest: perfect balance is a myth. Especially when youâre juggling a sprint review, spilled applesauce, and a request for one more bedtime story all at once.
Instead of balance, aim for intentional priority shifts. Sometimes, the urgent thing isnât the deployment. Itâs the Minecraft house tour you were promised two days ago. (You will be judged if you miss it.)
Dad joke alert:
How do developer dads discipline?
They just send you to the corner… case.
đ± 5. A Call to All Builders
If youâre building a career, a company, or just trying to keep the Wi-Fi runningâremember this: the most enduring software youâll ever write is etched into the people you nurture.
This Fatherâs Day, donât measure success by what youâve shipped. Measure it by who youâve lifted.
And maybe, just maybe, close the laptop early. The bug will still be there tomorrow. But that LEGO castle wonât build itselfâand your kid just promoted you to CTO (Chief Tower Officer).
đ Final Thought (and one last dad joke)
You donât have to be perfect. You just have to be there. Thatâs what kids, mentees, and junior devs really remember. Not the syntaxâjust the support.
Final dad joke alert:
Why donât dad developers need bookmarks?
Because they always âtabâ into their kidsâ lives.
Happy Fatherâs Day to all the builders of humans, not just systems. Your uptime matters.
Strategic Self-Promotion at Work: Knowing When to Speak Up and When to Step Back
What is Self-Promotion?
Self-promotion is the act of intentionally highlighting your achievements, skills, or contributions to othersâoften with the goal of gaining recognition, advancing your career, or influencing outcomes. In a corporate environment, this can take many forms: sharing a win in a meeting, updating a manager on successful project outcomes, or posting about accomplishments on internal platforms like Slack, Teams, or the company intranet.
But hereâs the nuance: self-promotion isnât about bragging. Itâs about visibility, alignment, and impact. And like most things in professional life, timing and intent matter.
When Itâs Okay to Self-Promote
â 1. When It Aligns With Team or Company Goals
If your achievement contributes directly to the companyâs mission or your teamâs success, sharing it isnât just appropriateâitâs valuable. It demonstrates alignment, results, and momentum.
Example: “By automating the report, I saved our team 10 hours a weekâallowing us to hit the quarterly review deadline early.”
â 2. During Performance Reviews and 1:1s
This is your time to shine. Managers arenât mind readers, and they canât champion what they donât know. Come prepared with measurable results, challenges overcome, and peer feedback.
â 3. To Help Others Learn
Sharing how you solved a problem or achieved a result can help others in the organization. If your self-promotion is framed as a learning moment, it becomes contribution, not ego.
“I found a way to cut AWS costs by 20%âhappy to show others how I approached it.”
â 4. In Cross-Team or Visibility-Limited Work
If your work is siloed, people outside your immediate team may never hear about it unless you speak up. Especially in hybrid or remote settings, visibility often needs to be created intentionally.
â 5. When Advocating for Others, Too
Self-promotion paired with team praise (âwe did this togetherâ) not only feels more authentic but demonstrates leadership and humility.
When to Hold Back on Self-Promotion
đ« 1. In the Middle of a Crisis or Team Failure
Timing is everything. If a team just missed a major deadline or suffered a setback, thatâs not the moment to highlight your unrelated win. It may come off as tone-deaf or self-serving.
đ« 2. When It Comes at the Expense of Others
Taking credit that overshadows or ignores othersâ contributions erodes trust. Promote shared accomplishments and be generous in highlighting peers who contributed.
đ« 3. Too Frequently or Without Substance
Constant self-promotionâespecially without meaningful outcomesâcan dilute your credibility. If you’re always “on stage,” people may tune out. Focus on signal, not noise.
đ« 4. If It Disrupts Group Dynamics
In group settings like team retros or brainstorming sessions, dominating the conversation to highlight your individual wins can derail collaboration. Context mattersâchoose your moment wisely.
đ« 5. On Platforms Meant for Other Purposes
Posting personal wins in threads meant for ops issues, support requests, or customer escalations can come off as inappropriate. Respect the space and the audience.
Striking the Balance: Tips for Thoughtful Self-Promotion
- Use data and outcomes: Focus on impact, not effort. âI improved customer response time by 40%â lands better than âI worked really hard on this.â
- Frame with intent: Are you sharing to inspire, inform, or influence? Make the reason clear.
- Invite engagement: âIâd love feedbackâ or âOpen to ideas for how to expand thisâ turns a monologue into a dialogue.
- Match the medium to the message: A casual win might fit in Slack; a big milestone deserves a slide in a quarterly review or town hall.
- Be consistent, not constant: Keep a running list of wins, and choose the right moment to surface them.
Final Thought
Self-promotion, when done right, is not self-centered. Itâs a professional responsibility to make your work visible, especially when it contributes to larger goals. But doing it with empathy, timing, and clarity of purpose separates the respected from the resented.
In the end, self-promotion is less about making noise and more about creating resonance.
The Compass of Growth: Education, Execution, and Consistency
âIf you’re lost, the answer is education. If you’re educated, the answer is execution. If you’re executing, the answer is consistency.â â Dan Koe
We often search for answers as though life is a maze, and we just missed the right turn. But Dan Koeâs simple, layered insight offers more than just directionâit provides a progression, a philosophy, and perhaps most importantly, a map.
1. If You’re Lost, the Answer Is Education
Feeling stuck or aimless is not a personal failureâit’s a signal. When you donât know what to do next, it’s often because you haven’t learned what you need yet.
Education doesnât only mean formal schooling. It means reading, listening, asking, observing, and experimenting. It means recognizing what you donât know and being humble enough to go find it. If youâre unsure of your next step, immerse yourself in learningâabout yourself, your field, your challenges, and the paths others have taken.
Being lost isnât the end. Itâs the beginning of curiosity.
2. If You’re Educated, the Answer Is Execution
Knowledge without action is potential without power. Once you’ve learnedâreally learnedâwhat needs to be done, you must do it. Too many educated minds sit idle, overwhelmed by perfectionism, fear, or waiting for the “right” moment.
Execution is where clarity sharpens. It’s the crucible where theories meet reality. It’s messy, imperfect, and uncomfortableâbut itâs also the only bridge between your ideas and your results.
Knowing is good. Doing is transformational.
3. If You’re Executing, the Answer Is Consistency
Execution will get you started. But consistency is what gets you there.
You can sprint your way into a breakthrough, but you marathon your way into mastery. The person who keeps showing upâeven when itâs hard, boring, or uncertainâinevitably wins. Results come not from a single burst of effort, but from repeated, relentless application over time.
Consistency compounds. It’s not sexy. It’s not viral. But it’s magic.
Talent starts the race. Consistency finishes it.
The Growth Loop
This quote isnât just adviceâitâs a feedback loop. Because even when you’re consistent, youâll eventually hit a wall. The answer? Learn again. Then execute. Then stay consistent. The cycle continues, each time lifting you higher.
Whether youâre lost or laser-focused, Dan Koeâs insight is a reminder that the answers arenât always out thereâtheyâre within your grasp, step by step.
So ask yourself:
- Are you lost? Learn.
- Are you informed? Act.
- Are you acting? Repeat.
Thatâs the roadmap. Thatâs the journey.
AI Enables Anyone to Make Things Usable. Our Job Is to Make Things Unforgettable.
In the past, building usable tools required years of specialized training. Designers spent decades mastering the principles of usability. Developers meticulously crafted user experiences with precision. But today, we live in a radically different landscape.
Thanks to AI, anyone can generate a user interface. A student can spin up a web app overnight. A founder with no design background can build a mobile experience that meets minimum usability standards. The playing field has leveled. Usability is no longer a competitive edgeâitâs table stakes.

So where do we go from here?
From Usable to Unforgettable
If AI can help everyone build usable products, our role as creators must evolve. Weâre no longer just the gatekeepers of good UX or clean code. Weâre the curators of memorable moments. We move from technicians to storytellers.
Usability is necessary. Emotional resonance is unforgettable.
Think about the products and experiences that stuck with youâthe first iPhone, a game that made you cry, a website that made you smile unexpectedly. These werenât just usable. They mattered. They had personality, soul, and meaning. Thatâs where humans still lead.
What Makes Something Unforgettable?
Here are the elements that elevate usability into memorability:
- Delight: Not just functional, but delightful. Small moments of surprise and joy.
- Empathy: Understanding not just what users do, but why they do itâand reflecting that back in the product.
- Storytelling: Products that tell a story, with a clear beginning, middle, and satisfying end.
- Craftsmanship: Thoughtful details that donât just work, but feel right. Like the haptic feedback that mimics a physical click.
- Meaning: A product that aligns with values, identity, or mission becomes a part of someoneâs life, not just their workflow.
These are the places where AI can assist, but not replace us. These are the human fingerprints we leave behind.
AI as the Great Equalizerâand the Great Reminder
AI has made creating usable things faster, cheaper, and more accessible than ever. Thatâs a win for innovation and inclusion.
But as AI levels the baseline, it also forces us to raise our ceiling. It reminds us: what makes something memorable, viral, belovedâor even legendaryâis still uniquely human.
In a world where anyone can make something usable, the creators who thrive will be those who dare to make something unforgettable.
Thatâs not a burden. Thatâs a calling.
Adapting to Organizational Change â And Asking, Should You Even?
Change is inevitable. Especially in todayâs work environment, where restructuring, reorgs, pivots, layoffs, leadership shuffles, and new strategic directions seem more like quarterly rituals than rare events. The question isnât just how you adapt â but whether you should, every time.

Letâs break this into two questions:
1. How Can You Adapt to Organizational Change?
Adaptation is both mindset and method. Itâs about flexibility, resilience, and agency. Hereâs how you can approach it constructively:
đ Understand the Why
Donât resist blindly. Ask: Why is this change happening? Is it market-driven, a leadership shift, or a cultural realignment? Understanding intent can help reframe change from threat to opportunity.
đ§ Stay Curious, Not Cynical
Cynicism is seductive, especially when changes feel chaotic or top-down. But curiosity is more productive. What new roles, relationships, or responsibilities are opening up? What might you learn?
đ ïž Upgrade Your Skills
Sometimes the best response to change is reinvention. Upskilling â whether it’s tech, soft skills, or business literacy â increases your adaptability and optionality in the new landscape.
đ€ Find Your People
Donât navigate change alone. Build micro-communities of support inside your org. Seek out those who are constructively processing the change â theyâre usually the ones shaping its outcomes too.
đ§ Anchor to Purpose
When everything is in flux, knowing your own “why” becomes your internal compass. How does your role â or even your presence â contribute value? Reaffirm your purpose or redefine it if needed.
2. Should You Even Adapt?
Now for the tougher â and more subversive â question: Should you adapt to every organizational change?
đ© When to Say No
Not every change is aligned with your values or career trajectory. If an organizational shift undermines ethics, drastically alters your role into something unrecognizable, or damages team culture beyond repair, adapting may mean compromising too much.
đ§ź Cost-Benefit Check
Ask yourself: Is the energy Iâm spending to adapt going to pay off â emotionally, professionally, financially? If youâre adapting just to survive but not thrive, thatâs worth noticing.
đ Adapt Doesnât Mean Assimilate
You can change your tactics without changing your identity. You can support the organizationâs evolution without suppressing your own voice or vision. Adaptation should never require erasure.
đȘ Sometimes, Exit Is the Bravest Adaptation
If all signs point to a misalignment too large to bridge, leaving is not failure â itâs redirection. Thereâs wisdom in knowing when adaptation turns into self-betrayal.
Final Thought: Change Is a Two-Way Street
Organizations often expect employees to adapt quickly â but itâs equally valid to ask whether the organization is adapting to support its people. Sustainable change involves dialogue, not dictation.
So yes â learn how to adapt. But donât forget your agency in deciding whether to. The healthiest professionals are not the most obedient â theyâre the ones who know whatâs worth adapting for.
Electricity Changed What We Do. AI Changes How We Think.
When electrification first swept across the industrialized world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it did not simply illuminate homesâit rewired economies, industries, and the very fabric of daily life. Factories shifted from steam power to electric motors, households gained access to new appliances, and entire sectors of the workforce were transformed. It was not just a new technologyâit was a new infrastructure.
Today, artificial intelligence (AI) is often compared to electricity in its potential. The question is: is AI truly as groundbreaking as electrification was? Or are we witnessing a different kind of transformationâone more gradual, more abstract, yet equally far-reaching?

Similarities: A New General-Purpose Technology
Both electrification and AI can be classified as general-purpose technologies (GPTs)âinnovations that affect nearly every aspect of life and spur complementary inventions.
- Pervasiveness: Just as electricity flowed into every corner of industrial society, AI is beginning to permeate healthcare, finance, agriculture, manufacturing, education, and creative industries. From recommendation engines to medical diagnostics, AI is no longer confined to research labs.
- Enabler of New Tools: Electrification brought refrigerators, power tools, and electric railways. AI enables autonomous vehicles, language translation, generative design, and intelligent searchâall tools that redefine how work is done and value is created.
- Infrastructure Shift: Electricity required the construction of grids, substations, and new factories. Similarly, AI demands vast data infrastructure, compute capacity, and new architecturesâfrom GPUs to edge AI devices.
Differences: Tangibility and Speed
Despite the similarities, there are profound differences:
- Tangibility: Electricity was visceral. Lights turned on. Machines ran faster. With AI, the impact is more invisibleâalgorithms optimizing logistics, personalized recommendations appearing on screens. The transformative power is often hidden behind APIs, not humming power lines.
- Adoption Curve: Electrification took decades to reach full maturityâespecially in rural areas. AI, by contrast, has accelerated at a staggering pace, boosted by cloud computing, open-source frameworks, and global connectivity. However, full integration into society (regulatory, ethical, cultural) may still follow a slow arc.
- Labor Shift vs. Cognitive Shift: Electrification mechanized physical labor. AI automates cognitive tasks. This introduces new questions about decision-making, responsibility, creativity, and even identity. Itâs not just jobs at stakeâitâs judgment.
Electrification Changed the World. Will AI Change Us?
Electrification changed what we could do. AI changes what we can think, delegate, and create. This brings challenges electrification never had to face: bias in algorithms, AI safety, deepfakes, and the automation of deception.
And while the electric revolution united societies around infrastructure, AI may further fragment themâbetween the data-rich and the data-poor, the model builders and the model users, the AI fluent and the digitally marginalized.
Conclusion: The Ground Is ShiftingâDifferently
So, is AI as groundbreaking as electrification? In scope and potentialâyes. In manifestation and consequencesâit’s different.
Electrification illuminated the world. AI is illuminating the mind, the process, the decision.
We are not just plugging into new power. We are rewriting the blueprint of cognition, creativity, and control.
In the end, the comparison is useful not because the two are identical, but because it reminds us: transformative technologies reshape societies not when they emergeâbut when we learn how to live with them.
Invest in Yourself and the World Takes Notes
In a world obsessed with external validationâlikes, shares, certifications, titlesâthereâs one form of investment that never fails, never depreciates, and never goes unnoticed: the investment you make in yourself. It doesnât come with a flashy launch or a press release, but over time, it becomes undeniable. Quietly, persistently, and then all at once, the world begins to take notes.

The Compound Interest of Self-Investment
Self-investment isnât just about taking a course or reading a book (though those help). Itâs about carving out the time and discipline to build who you are. Think of it as compound interest applied to your skills, mindset, and habits. Every podcast you listen to, every extra rep at the gym, every intentional choice to rest instead of burn outâthese are deposits in the most secure bank there is: you.
People can take your job, your possessions, even your comfortâbut what youâve built within yourself remains. Thatâs why investing in your growth is the most resilient strategy you can adopt.
The World is Always Watching
We tend to think nobody notices the work we put in when the cameras are off. But the world has a way of noticing momentum. You become sharper, more confident, more curious. You ask better questions. You handle stress differently. You radiate intention.
And people pick up on that. The promotions, partnerships, and invitations donât arrive by accidentâtheyâre the receipts of invisible preparation. The world doesn’t reward noise. It rewards signal. When you become a strong enough signal, the world canât ignore you.
The ROI is Exponential
Investing in yourself doesnât just elevate youâit uplifts others. A more disciplined you is a better mentor. A more emotionally intelligent you is a better leader. A more courageous you challenges others to rise, too.
This is not selfish workâitâs generative work. When you bet on yourself, others start betting on you too.
Practical Ways to Start Today
- Read like your life depends on it. Because in many ways, it does.
- Ask for feedback and act on it. Growth isnât always comfortable, but itâs always worth it.
- Take care of your body. Itâs not just about looking good; itâs about having the energy to execute your vision.
- Say no more often. Protect your time like itâs goldâbecause it is.
- Stay curious. Lifelong learners win the long game.
Final Thought
You donât need permission to begin. You donât need applause to continue. But if you keep showing up for yourselfâday in and day outâthe world will eventually look up, take notes, and follow suit.
Because when you invest in yourself, you become a living example of what’s possible.
And thatâs something no one can ignore.
The Org Chart Isnât the Problem – Itâs the Excuse
When asked, “Whatâs broken?” too many leaders instinctively reach for the org chart. They point to silos, titles, unclear lines of responsibility, or a lack of centralized ownership as the culprits. But hereâs the uncomfortable truth: the org chart is rarely the root cause. Itâs just a reflection. Like blaming the mirror for a bad haircut.
Letâs be clear: organizations donât succeed or fail because of boxes and lines on a slide. They thrive or flounder because of behaviors, incentives, systems, andâmost importantlyâhow people communicate and make decisions under uncertainty.
The Org Chart Is a Map, Not the Terrain
The org chart shows you who reports to whom, but not how work gets done. It tells you the hierarchy, not the hustle. Teams often collaborate cross-functionally, circumvent formal structures, and build shadow systems to actually deliver value.
So when something breaksâwhen deadlines slip, when innovation stalls, when morale dipsâblaming the structure is like blaming your GPS for traffic.
You need to ask deeper questions:
- How are decisions made?
- Where do ideas go to die?
- Who is afraid to speak up?
- What incentives reward risk aversion over impact?
These are not questions your org chart can answer. But theyâre exactly where the real dysfunction hides.
Fix the Flow, Not the Form
If your product delivery is stalling, the answer may not be to move âProductâ under âEngineeringâ or vice versa. It might be that there is no shared understanding of goals. Or that metrics are competing rather than aligned. Or that feedback loops are broken.
Organizations that fix problems effectively look at flow of valueânot just whoâs in charge. They visualize dependencies, communication bottlenecks, and decision latency. They ask how to remove friction, not just how to rename departments.
Culture Eats Org Charts for Breakfast
You can reorganize all you want, but if fear, confusion, or apathy are culturally ingrained, nothing changes. If people donât trust leadership, donât feel safe giving honest feedback, or donât believe their work mattersâyou could give them the best org chart in the world, and theyâd still disengage.
Culture is what happens in the hallways, not in the hierarchy. So instead of shuffling titles, ask:
- What behaviors do we reward?
- What failures do we learn fromâor punish?
- How do we show we value collaboration over control?
Rethink the Reflex
The next time youâre asked âWhatâs broken?â and you find yourself reaching for the org chart, pause. That reflex often indicates a desire for simplicityâan easy lever to pull. But organizations are complex systems. You donât fix complexity with rearrangement. You fix it with reflection.
You fix it by listening to the frontline. By examining your assumptions. By understanding where your strategy, systems, and signals are misaligned.
In short, you fix it not by pointing at structureâbut by addressing substance.
TL;DR
If your answer to “What’s broken?” is the org chart, you’re not solving the real problem. Youâre just rearranging the furniture in a burning house. Look deeper. Diagnose system dynamics, not structure. Address culture, flow, incentives, and clarity.
Because itâs not about who reports to whom.
Itâs about whether anyoneâs really talking, building, and solving the right problems together.