rmoff's random ramblings

Interesting links - March 2026

by · Interesting Links at https://preview.rmoff.net/2026/03/25/interesting-links-march-2026/

Table of Contents
Interesting Links

I’ve had a huge amount of fun this month exploring quite what AI (in the form of Claude Code) can do for a data engineer. Rather than just hack around at a prompt, I took a bit more of a considered approach to it, building a harness to test out different prompts and skills. You can read my write-up here, the headline of which is that literally Claude Code isn’t going to replace data engineers (yet).

I’ve also written up an AI Disclosure for my blog which I’ll keep up to date as my use of AI evolves, along with a sweary rant about why you basically have to get on board with AI if you value your career.

  • 🔥 Not got time for all this? I’ve marked my top reads of the month :)

  • 📧 Want to receive this monthly round-up as an email? Subscribe to my Substack where I cross-post the same content

  • 🔗 Medium posts often skulk behind a gate, so I’ve hyperlinked to the Freedium version. You’ll see [Medium ↗] next to each link if you prefer the original.

Kafka and Event Streaming 🔗

Stream Processing 🔗

Analytics 🔗

Data Platforms, Architectures, and Modelling 🔗

Data Engineering, Pipelines, and CDC 🔗

Open Table Formats (OTF), Catalogs, Lakehouses etc. 🔗

RDBMS 🔗

AI 🔗

I warned you previously…this AI stuff is here to stay, and it’d be short-sighted to think otherwise. As I read and learn more about it, I’m going to share interesting links (the clue is in the blog post title) that I find—whilst trying to avoid the breathless hype and slop.

Big Picture & Culture 🔗

There’s a theme running through this section. I’m going to crudely summarise it thus:

  • AI is here, and it’s a massive opportunity for us as individuals in the software industry.

  • There are many reasons we recoil against AI and that’s natural and understandable—but don’t mistake these for reasons not to embrace it (see first point).

  • 🔥 Brittany Ellich’s blog post was my favourite one this month with this excellent post, from which I’ll quote verbatim:

    Nobody knows what the future of software engineering looks like, and that’s incredibly uncomfortable. But instead of waiting for someone to hand us the answer, I think the move is to embrace the uncertainty, because these moments of deep uncertainty have historically been moments of extraordinary opportunity.

  • Annie Vella has an accessible and unfussy way of clearly communicating, and I really enjoyed both of her recent posts, Finding Comfort in the Uncertainty and The Middle Loop.

  • I wrote a ranty post to get stuff off my chest, but not nearly as articulately nor considered as many others in this section: AI will f**k you up if you’re not on board.

  • Chris Gambill’s post is in a similar vein to mine: If You Aren’t Using AI, You Are Already Legacy.

  • 🔥 Nolan Lawson’s post We mourn our craft may sound hyperbolic but there is genuinely a sense of grief that I sense amongst engineers at something that is being taken from them whether they like it or not (and regardless of whether they themselves adopt it or not).

  • The concept of grief and loss and its corresponding stages (anger, denial, bargaining, etc) actually fit well with many of the emotions that I’m seeing play out at the moment, and Andrew Murphy explores it in exactly this framing: The five stages of losing our craft.

  • Some of the folk in the "denial" camp need to read Charity Majors' latest post, in which she addresses head-on the point that AI now is not what it was when people dismissed it even last year.

    When the facts change, I change my mind

  • Outside of the pondering and realisation that the world has changed for software engineers comes the refreshing and entertaining reactions against one of the downsides of AI:

Open Source Licensing and AI Policies 🔗

The ability of LLMs to write code has blown wide open the debate on software licensing and what constitutes a 'copy'.

Meanwhile, projects and foundations are trying to rapidly keep up with what LLMs can do, and codify what role they should play in contributions:

Building with AI 🔗

The MCP Debate 🔗

MCP was hot (you don’t need CLI access!), and then it wasn’t (it burns context!), and now…It Depends ;)

AI in Practice 🔗

And finally… 🔗

Nothing to do with data, but stuff that I’ve found interesting or has made me think (or smile).

  • 🔥 A great piece from Chris Hillman, the tldr of which is the title (but read the article too!) Your Friends Will Be There for You. Your Work Won’t.

  • Dan Carlin (he of Hardcore History) is one of my absolute favourite podcasters. His style of presenting and depth of historical material is just wonderful. That’s why this post hit me harder than I’d expected:

    I think it is just hard to talk with passion and enthusiasm […] about events thousands of years ago on the history show when such momentous ones are occurring to all of us right now. […] We ARE living through absolutely momentous times (and dangerous ones). Don’t allow yourself to be gaslit about that. Any fan of History can see it.

  • The concept of "managing up" is important at work, and Lara Hogan describes it well in Managing your manager.

  • 🔥 Almog Gavra has created a very nifty tool called YuzuDraw which lets you create—and edit—ASCII-art style diagrams. It works with coding agents too.

    yuzudraw l

  • Kagi Translate includes a target language of LinkedIn Speak ;)

    kagi l

    In all seriousness though, Kagi is a set of applications that I rather like for its focus on functionality and respect, not growth hacking and enshittification. Their small web is a joyful reminder of how the internet used to be before walled gardens and karma-farming, and the search engine lets you wrest back control of your search results from the spam and shit (sorry, "sponsored listings").

  • 🔥 I Taught My Dog to Vibe Code Games. No notes.