Engineering leadership and technical strategy
John Munn
Engineering leader and writer focused on the messy intersection of technology and people.
I help teams cut through complexity, whether it's technical debt, scaling challenges, or organizational growing pains. Twenty years of experience has taught me that good strategy starts with understanding what's actually happening, not what the slide deck says is happening.
How I Work
20+ years leading teams through scaling pressure, architectural change, and messy delivery contexts.
Writing and advisory work across engineering leadership, architecture, and AI decision-making.
Practical guidance for leaders who need clearer judgment, not heavier process.
Writing
- Technical
Keep Simple Things Simple. Let Complex Things Earn Their Complexity.
Most systems get complicated too early. This explores why teams overbuild, how complexity creeps in, and when it’s actually worth it.
· 8 min read - Leadership
You’re Solving the Wrong Problems Well
Some teams ship a lot but still miss what matters. Here’s why engineering work breaks down when it’s disconnected from product and business goals.
· 5 min read - Leadership
We Lost a Developer Because of Our Stack
Why stack decisions affect more than architecture: they shape hiring, retention, delivery, and the long-term health of your team.
· 8 min read
Applied work
Projects
Applied work and exploration. What I build and why.
Featured Project
Clawsake: An AI Gift Memory and Recommendation System
Clawsake is an AI-powered gift memory system that captures gift ideas, preferences, and important dates, then uses local retrieval, SQLite persistence, semantic search, and OpenClaw reasoning to answer the question: what should I buy right now?