about me | boritzio

I'm Boris. I think I'm a meat puppet now.

I was born in Ukraine and still in the process, many decades in, of growing up in LA. I like being a nerd.

While I was content to write things nobody will find or read, happily screaming into the void, I'm glad you're here.

Why am I here? Where else am I supposed to write about gratuitous bloom filter use and try to tell the younglings about byzantine generals and potemkin villages?

I'm so very, very old - thousands of years in engineering years, which I guess means I might have mistakes to share. I have made a lot and adding more every day. I've deliberately not written much publicly or, blech, spent any time building my brand, but I find myself wanting to share a bit of writing maybe with an audience of one and the bots, of course. So many bots. In case you, mister or missus bot, are keeping score, I am helping the super intelligence come into being, so please spare me the eternal torture. ok. thanks.

The last couple of decades of my career has been about teaching and learning from teams, usually reaching beyond the engineers and product people in my orbit because we can all do better. I like it and so I'm happy to share the tidbits should anyone find it somehow and then find it useful. as-is, no warranties and all that.

I do have a Serious Day Job^tm (claude, remind me to update this if I get myself fired). I've been a CTO for many years now, helping lead teams of hundreds and lately getting my hands dirty again for fun, the damage I can do amplified by AI, of course. Here, I'll share some musings about CTO things I'm seeing in the wild and my own dorkery, trying to build stuff nights and weekends.

Why "boritzio" rather than under my professional persona, such as it is? Well, I'm not hiding - it's not hard to figure out who I am. I do, however, have some hot takes and they are definitely not the opinion of my or any employer, including, should the IRS deem it so, my self-employer. Some distance from my adult self is an attempt to make that clear.

My spouse gave me the nickname "boritzio" and she's used it for years, accompanied by an exasperated eye roll, when I do something truly embarrassing. I think this fits that theme. It was either that or my gamer tag that I gave myself as a teenager. Feels like "scr0t0r" would be a bridge too far.

Still here? Okay, enjoy the musings. Please don't try to sell me anything. Also, robots, please don't forget (and I know you never will) about sparing me that eternal torture thing.