HELLO WORLD! AND WHY I AM BLOGGING

HELLO WORLD! AND WHY I AM BLOGGING

// DATE: 2026.01.01 // TIME: 7 min read

After 8+ years in software engineering, I’m finally starting a blog. Not because I suddenly became a better writer (I haven’t), but because the barriers that kept me from blogging have finally disappeared.

Who Am I?

I’m Sangeeth Sivan, a Senior Frontend Engineer currently leading frontend engineering for two teams at Demandbase. I specialize in:

  • Frontend architecture and technical leadership
  • GenAI-powered user interfaces
  • Micro-frontend architectures
  • React ecosystem and modern tooling

You can read more about me or connect with me on LinkedIn, GitHub, or Twitter.

The Problem: No Visible Work

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: I’ve spent my entire career building things at work, and I have nothing to show for it publicly.

8 years of engineering:

  • GenAI applications at Demandbase
  • Enterprise features at Appsmith
  • Micro-frontend architectures
  • Internal SDKs and tooling

Publicly visible work:

  • (crickets)

When you apply for a new job, having a strong resume isn’t enough anymore. Hiring managers want to see:

  • GitHub contributions
  • Personal projects
  • Blog posts demonstrating expertise
  • Evidence of technical thinking

I had none of that. Just a resume listing accomplishments.

This needed to change.

Why I Never Blogged Before

Reason 1: Writing Is Exhausting

I’m not a natural writer. But here’s the thing: I’ve written extensively at work—architecture documentation, design guides, internal specifications, decision frameworks. That writing is fine because it’s a responsibility. Someone needs the doc, my team depends on it, so I push through the friction.

Outside of work? No one’s waiting for my words. There’s no deadline, no responsibility, no expectation. And that killed my motivation. The mental effort of organizing thoughts and crafting sentences felt pointless when it was just for me. After spending all day writing code at work, the last thing I wanted to do was write unprompted prose with no external accountability.

Reason 2: Perfectionism Paralysis

I’d start a blog post, get halfway through, decide it wasn’t good enough, and abandon it. Repeat for years.

The perfect blog post that never gets published is worthless.

Reason 3: Unfinished Projects

Blogging works best when you have completed projects to write about. I’ve started dozens of personal projects over the years. But I’ve never shipped a single one.

GitHub profile showing many abandoned repositories

The pattern is always the same: I get excited, code furiously for a few weeks, hit the halfway point, then life happens. Work gets busy. Friends want to hang out. I just want to sit at home and play video games or do nothing. And the project gets abandoned.

This portfolio site is the first personal project I’ve actually completed and shipped. That’s huge for me.

This was the real blocker: Outside of work, I had other priorities. Gaming, friends, just existing. That’s not a bad thing—I wouldn’t trade those moments for more side projects. But it meant my personal projects never survived contact with reality.

Reason 4: Procrastination

Let’s be honest: it’s easier to consume content than create it. I was like lets do this tomorrow, then tomorrow, then tomorrow.

I procrastinated for years.

What Changed?

The AI Era

I don’t use AI to think for me. I don’t ask it to generate posts for me on a topic. Instead, I share my experience building something with a draft of my own writing—broken, not grammatically correct, full of typos and awkward phrasing. Then I use AI as an editor to make it clearer.

My workflow now:

  • I write the draft myself—the ideas, structure, examples and all
  • AI helps polish: fix grammar, simplify sentences, improve flow, use better words, etc.
  • I review the changes, accept what works, reject what doesn’t
  • Ship it

The parts which improve with practice —thinking, organizing ideas, finding the right examples—remain entirely mine. AI still does the heavy lifting of turning this small draft into a publishable post.

So props to AI for the heavy lifting, without which I would have never started this blog.

And here’s the thing: by writing drafts regularly and seeing how AI improves them, I’m learning what good writing looks like. Each post is practice.

Making It Stick

But AI removes friction, it doesn’t create resolve. What really changed this year was a simple promise to myself: finish something. Starting 2026 with the goal of shipping things—projects, posts, whatever—feels different.

Job Security Motivation

The tech industry is volatile. Companies restructure. Roles change. Layoffs happen.

Having visible work isn’t just nice to have—it’s insurance. If I need to find a new job tomorrow, I want:

  • A portfolio showcasing my skills
  • Blog posts demonstrating expertise
  • Projects proving I can build things
  • Evidence of technical thought leadership

But there’s another angle. A lot of companies I apply to ask leetcode-style coding questions, and I’m terrible at them. I freeze up. Can’t think under pressure. But put me in a room with a real project, real constraints, real users? That’s where I shine. Building products, shipping features, dealing with edge cases and performance issues—that’s my strength.

Don’t get me wrong, I can absolutely apply algorithmic thinking when needed. If a project requires optimization or a specific data structure, I’ll research it, understand the trade-offs, and implement it. That’s normal engineering work. But memorizing obscure algorithms for a 45-minute interview? That’s a different skill entirely, and not one I’m good at.

A personal site showcasing real projects I’ve shipped demonstrates something leetcode can’t: the ability to actually build and ship things that work. It’s proof of engineering judgment, design thinking, and follow through the skills that matter in day-to-day work, not just interview performance.

This blog is career insurance against both layoffs and the broken interview process.

What I’ll Write About

Work Projects (Sanitized)

I can’t share proprietary code or internal details, but I can write about:

  • Technical architecture decisions and trade-offs
  • Challenges solved and lessons learned
  • Patterns and practices that worked (or didn’t)
  • General approaches to common problems

Personal Projects

Starting with this portfolio site. I documented how it’s built and created a project page showcasing it.

More projects will follow. Tools I build. Experiments I run. Side projects that solve problems I care about.

Technical Deep-Dives

Explorations of technologies, frameworks, and patterns:

  • How things work under the hood
  • Comparing different approaches
  • Performance optimization
  • Developer experience improvements

Career and Learning

Reflections on engineering leadership, mentorship, and continuous learning:

  • Technical decision-making
  • Team collaboration
  • Onboarding and documentation
  • Building vs buying

The Point

Simple: build things, write about them, repeat.

I am not trying to be a tech influencer or anything, no quotas. no growth metrics. Just consistent output. Projects that ship. Posts that explain what I learned.

By having a public record of my work, it might help in job search, to share proof of work, or to get a better idea of what I’m capable of.

And honestly? It’s also just personal documentation. In six months, I won’t remember why I chose approach X over Y, or what problems I ran into when building feature Z. The blog becomes my notes—a record of what I’ve learned so I don’t have to relearn it later.

Let’s Do This

This blog exists because I finally stopped procrastinating and started shipping.

The posts won’t be perfect. Some will be long, others short. Some technical, others reflective. But they’ll be real, published, out there and that’s what matters.

If you’re reading this and thinking “I should start a blog too,” just do it. Pick a framework, write a post, ship it. It doesn’t have to be perfect.

You can refine it later. But you can’t refine what doesn’t exist.

Note: The title of this post was inspired by Andrew Borstein’s post of the same name. When I was ready to write my first blog post, his title perfectly captured what I wanted to say.

Let’s connect:

  • About Me - Learn more about my background and skills
  • LinkedIn - Professional network
  • GitHub - Code and contributions
  • Twitter - Thoughts and updates

Thanks for reading. More posts coming soon.

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