I learn by asking how things work. At Flo Mattress I used that habit to build the internal operating system the company runs on. I replaced 8+ outsourced tools with it at one-eighth of the cost, and teams across the company work inside it.
Each time I use software, I want to understand the decisions behind it and find the part I wish it did better. I look at a company's processes the same way: I put dashboards and logs on them, watch where work slows down or breaks, then rebuild that step and measure the result.
If other people face the same friction, I build the smallest useful version, use it myself and rebuild what is missing, in reusable parts, so a new integration takes one adapter. I pick up in days what takes months to build, and I try new AI models and tools as they appear.
Today I lead engineering at Flo Mattress as a founding member of the team. I gather requirements from the teams that use the system, size the load and the running cost before I design anything, and plan for what will fail. I set the coding standards, including the AI-assisted workflow, mentor the engineers and interns who join, and can lead several teams. The scale is larger and the habit is the same: question the familiar, connect the pieces and build the version I believe should exist.