About
I'm Sanath, a software engineer with twelve years shipping backend systems, the last two of which changed how I think about what "productive" actually means.
I use AI in every part of my engineering work. Not as a shortcut, but as a pair programmer I direct the way a senior engineer should. These days I'm also building agentic systems: how memory, context, and long-horizon reasoning actually work when you move beyond demos into production.
How I use AI
I plan before I prompt: what I'm building, the constraints, the patterns to follow. Without that, the AI generates fast and wrong.
I treat it like onboarding someone into the codebase. Unclear boundaries, inconsistent patterns - the AI struggles with that the same way anyone would walking in cold. So I keep the code in a state where I could hand it off. That someone is often the AI.
My job is to hold the wider picture: how it fits the system, what the tradeoffs are, when the output is subtly wrong. That's where the twelve years show up - not in typing faster, but in knowing when to push back.
AI Won't Replace You - But a Developer Using AI Will goes deep on the working relationship.
Stack
The tools I actually reach for, grouped by what they're for - if it's here, it's in regular rotation.
Work
Twelve years of shipping backend and full-stack systems - from offshore team lead in Colombo to senior engineer in Berlin.
Architected transition from monolithic to microservices, designed public APIs and ERP integrations. Mentored developers, optimized data export processes, and facilitated agile development processes.
Led backend team and migrated WordPress solution to NestJS microservices. Designed generic APIs for web/mobile clients, implemented user personalization features, bank switching strategy, and APM monitoring with Elastic Cloud.
Led technical team for Lead Generation and Marketing module, designing system architecture. Mentored team members through one-on-ones and collaborated with leadership to align business objectives with team goals.
Led automated rent payment platform development and tenant organization systems. Migrated legacy REST API to GraphQL with backward compatibility and established agile development processes.
Led offshore development team for European digital advertising automation company. Implemented print media advertising portal and designed software systems using Domain Driven Design and CQRS paradigms.
Led offshore development team for Singapore-based technology company. Architected dynamic marketplace/tenant platform and implemented Single Sign-On authentication based on trusted domain.
Developed software solutions through user story analysis and system flow design using PSR standards.
Designed and developed construction management system. Maintained and enhanced existing software applications.
Certifications
Elsewhere
- GitHub↗ - code and open source.
- X / Twitter↗ - thinking out loud.
- RSS↗ - subscribe to the writing.
- hello@sanath.dev - say hi.
Now
A snapshot of current focus, in the Derek Sivers sense. I'm building Draph and an agent runtime built around the simple agent loop, writing about evals for agentic systems, and going deep on small language models.
- Building - Draph - diagram & flowchart tool with AI-assisted layout. Meso - an agent runtime.
- Writing - A long post on evals for agentic systems - why standard approaches fall short when tools have side effects.
- Learning - How to build my own SLM - going deep on the fundamentals of small language models.
- Location - Berlin, DE.