Dee's Blog

Except a few things that stuck.

I wrote a 235-page survival guide for people scared about AI replacing their jobs. 24 rules, honest takes, built with AI itself. Here's what it is and why.

CTRs are down 30%, AI Overviews are everywhere. SEO isn't dead but the rules shifted. Here's what GEO is and why brand mentions now outrank backlinks 3:1.

I have 61 post drafts, 18 finished blog posts, and published nothing. Here's what my AI agent diagnosed about why - and how I'm fixing the default.

castkit is an open-source Rust CLI demo video generator. Run one command on any binary and get a polished MP4 or GIF. Works headless in CI.

I built 31 open-source Rust CLI tools for AI agents and measured 35x better token efficiency vs MCP servers. Here's the stack, the design decisions, and why it works.

The hard part of building AI agents isn't the demo - it's the 3 months after. Real lessons from running a 15-agent system in production for 90 days.

How I built a universal MCP server that wraps 56 APIs into just two tools using the OpenAPI Code Mode pattern - cutting token costs 50x.

Prompt engineering had an 18-month run as a real skill. Models killed it. Learn what actually matters now - tool use, agent architecture, and MCP integration.

I accidentally stopped posting on Twitter for 2 months. Here's what happened to reach, followers, and my work - and what it actually cost me.

How I use Grok, Claude Code, Codex, and more in sequence to ship faster - what each model does best and why one tool isn't enough.

I rebuilt my Twitter from zero after a ban. Here's exactly how I grew to 500 followers in 30 days with replies, real takes, and no cross-promo deals.

What it actually looks like to run 7 simultaneous projects solo with ADHD - the failures, the systems that survived, and why I'll never take a cofounder.

Most AI products have terrible UX - not because the AI is bad, but because no one who understands both AI and design is building them. Here's what to fix.

Scored 147 on RAADS-R and 38 on AQ-50 (autism), plus ADHD. Here's how I built AI systems that work with my brain, not against it. Real stack, real workflows.

I was the only designer at a $4B+ fintech platform for 5 years. Here's the real reason I left in 2025 and what I'm building now.

After 5 years as VALK's sole designer, I realized I want to build, not just design. On the gap between what I designed and what shipped - and what comes next.

Five years into product design at a fintech, the majority of my work is documentation, edge cases, and maintenance. This is what senior design actually looks like.

After 4 years as VALK's sole designer, a major pivot taught me what happens when the product you built quietly gets deprecated - and how to stay.

After 2 years at a Moscow agency and 4 years as sole designer at a fintech, here's what actually changes when you go from agency to product design.

What four years as the sole designer on a fintech product teaches you about depth, restraint, and the trade-offs agency work never prepares you for.

Lessons from implementing WCAG 2.1 AA compliance in regulated financial software - data tables, chart contrast, focus management, and the institutional sales reality.

How I redesigned Merlin by VALK for the Ledger Live integration - two audiences, two design systems, and a compressed timeline.

I moved from Istanbul to LA and found the same Figma files waiting. Reflections on nomadic remote work, timezone pain, and why stability matters for design.

What I learned designing VALK's platform across 15 countries - date formats, RTL, regulatory UI rules, and how to structure Figma for regional variants.

Three years of enterprise B2B design at VALK with almost no user research access - and the proxy methods that replaced it.

After 2 years maintaining a solo design system at VALK, I found the real problems are organizational - not technical. Here's what I got wrong.

How I designed Merlin by VALK - a DeFi analytics tool built for traditional finance professionals who don't speak crypto-native language.

Lessons from designing financial data tables for institutional investors - density, sorting, accessibility, and why every table becomes a spreadsheet.

What breaks when your fintech design system grows from 7 clients to 70+ institutions fast - tokens, variants, documentation, and saying no.

After VALK closed its seed round in December 2020, everything I was working on suddenly changed. Here's what funding actually does to a startup's design work.

8 months into designing a fintech platform with zero financial background - how domain ignorance slows you down and unexpectedly helps you.

Six months into my first startup role, I rebuilt VALK's product from an engineer-built MVP. Here's what went wrong and what actually worked.

I joined fintech startup as sole product designer right before COVID. Working remote from Bali during quarantine taught me things about design process I did not expect.