In the latter half of 2025, I decided to spend more time “looking” at code. The old me would have said “writing” code, but as we all know, the world has changed, and that’s not the appropriate verb anymore.

Running a software engineering business is a game of rapid change—this industry is beset with such a fate. I myself have changed a lot—from a software developer to a team lead, and eventually an entrepreneur. The biggest change is that I’ve been coding less and less over the years as I’ve inevitably shifted focus to leadership.

When AI coding agents started becoming a thing (and by that, I mean when they really started showing promising results), I honestly couldn’t assess how big of a change they would bring. The blast was enormous—too enormous. It was impossible for anyone to accurately gauge the impact.

How much will it change a small company like ours? How much will it change me?

A question that starts with “how much” must be answered with some kind of quantity—a unit—a measurable and verifiable fact. How much will AI change us? To answer that, we must break down that change into smaller, digestible chunks and pick the ones we care about.

What do I care about? Let’s start with the business of building software.

At the heart of this profession lies the ultimate goal of improving any aspect of human experience—whether it’s the mundane experience of grocery shopping (one of my favorite activities) or a huge feat like probing the universe to ensure the survival of our planet (one of my childhood dreams). These two tasks couldn’t be farther from each other in scope, but it’s not unlikely that both can be improved with a piece of code written in the same language.

Isn’t this industry so damn fascinating?

What I truly care about is how much AI is changing my purpose in this fascinating process of creating software. But how can I measure purpose? Is it about the time I use to write code? Or can it be measured in terms of how much attention, creativity, problem-solving, questioning, prompting, communicating, coordinating, planning, testing in the physical world, campaigning, convincing people to change, and relentlessly trying different approaches whenever a solution fails—all in pursuit of improving human experiences?

AI has only changed one of my purposes. I accepted that in the latter half of 2025, when all I did was sit down, think, write specs, and look at code generated by AI. It was truly beautiful what it— I mean we—can do. Mind you, beauty is not perfect; at times, it’s also blinding.

In terms of quantifiable change, I now write 95% less code. The time to complete a feature’s code has also decreased by approximately 57%.

The ugly part of coding has changed too: the part where we have to type long, boring, boilerplate functions riddled with annoying red squiggly lines.

But the good part, at least to me, hasn’t changed much: the part when, after the code has undergone several levels of transformation under a machine that turns everything into 1’s and 0’s, I—the developer—get the first look at the physical manifestation of the team’s collective imagination and perfect it until it’s finally usable. That satisfying feeling, I hope, will stay the same.

I am, somehow, afraid of change—it would be hypocritical not to admit that. But the fear is so small compared to my excitement about the possibilities. I don’t fear losing my job or my business; I fear it will become harder to find young developers who are genuinely interested in creating great software because they think AI will replace them. When that happens, who will take care of the business of improving human experiences?

Perhaps that’s also my purpose: to find and grow people who will love this job as much as I do. To do that, I must not stop marveling at the beauty of code—written by humans or otherwise.

In tiny tech, some things are best kept short. Here’s a short list of them:

1. Arguments

2. Code

3. Documents

4. Cycles

5. Overthinking

In professional basketball, the fastest and quickest player on the team is often the shortest: the Point Guard.

Get to the point. Guard your time. There’s a reason why being tiny is an advantage: we can keep it short.

Isn’t that sweet?

“Start with a vision,” says the wise. I beg to disagree (for once).

Starting a new venture, a small tech project, a new team, or an old dream, is often a matter of looking back—not ahead; it’s taking an inventory of the past, choosing what to bring, but mostly what to leave behind.

After years of hard work, we start to fill our baggage with hopes and regrets, with piles of fears and desires tucked inside a secret pocket. Underneath all this pile is the answer to what we should be doing today.

Today is always a good day to start doing what you want to do—a sane choice for a new business.

“Only if I could,” says all of us. And we are correct (for once).

If we could just stop everything today so we can do what we want, we won’t be stuck here, wondering how to get started.

But now that we’re here—unable to stop—yet longing to start, what can we do?

My disappointing answer is: continue for just a bit.

Stay where you are. You don’t have to leave, yet. But hey, no one says you can’t start packing.

Reach out for that luggage on top of the closet, wipe the dust off, and roll the combination lock. When you hear that tiny metal clasp click, then congratulations, you just got started.

Here’s my packing list for starting (note: not yet doing) a small tech venture:

1. A handwritten line of what you can teach well

2. A sketch drawing of your first potential customer

3. A good story to tell number 2 with your good storytelling voice

4. Your sharpest tech tool, usually the ability to connect the dots

5. Ideas that failed, which you can repurpose

6. Ideas that already worked, that you can pick apart

7. The name of that one person that you can always ask about (not for) money

8. A lifetime supply of integrity

9. The healthy morning routine that you vow to uphold no matter what happens

10. Your number 1 cheerleader

For me, this is where it begins. You might have heard that you should start with the “Why”—that’s a good point too; I just find myself always changing my answer and somehow ending up getting lost.

What doesn’t change is that I can teach someone how to build software; I can somehow connect the dots. I also do love a good story and will tell it to anyone who’s sincerely interested. As for ideas, they’re floating everywhere if you’re stubborn and curious enough to find them. Money is a big topic; so find a good advisor, one with integrity, which is non-negotiable, like health. One day, we will regret starting a new venture—that’s when our cheerleader comes to remind us of our bravery.

I pace around the house, a mug of lukewarm tea in hand, asking myself one question:

“So, how big is my part in this?”

The answer is a resounding: very little.

Very little is not the same as nothing, like zero ≠ null.

We, who play very little part in moving the world forward, are still in the equation. We are the subatomic particles of the giant enterprises: corporations and governments that get all the credit (and backlash) for keeping us alive.

But being alive is not necessarily equal to living.

As I take another sip of now bitter and cold tea, the second question pops:

“So, how can we stay alive and live?”

I bet the big tech bosses are asking the same. We’re not that different after all, Jeff Bezos and I (except I always end up buying too much or too little pizza for the team).

Ok, maybe we are different—approximately a 221 billion dollar gap. Yet, I assume that we fundamentally want the same for our company: to stay alive and live.

Jeff has a bit more options to keep his company alive. To be fair, his definition of living is also different from mine. I don’t need that big of a yacht. I would be happy with an Amel 50 and an Amazon Prime subscription (which I recently canceled due to budget constraints).

The monthly expenses in my company could not buy half a slice of pizza for each employee at Jeff’s company, but part of those expenses go to him. If Jeff used any of that money to buy, let’s say, a LEGO set from Denmark, then a portion of that would go back as tax that keeps the train running to take me to work where I earn the money that I pay Jeff.

Subatomic particles in the equation.

That’s why we should stay alive and live. We matter in the bigger scheme of things.

Keeping a small tech company alive is simple, but not easy. Simple because all businesses are alike: produce a product that people buy, whether that’s a bar of soap, service or software. Difficult for the same reason that all businesses are similar: we are dependent on people who form their choices over a cup of tea, based on how they feel, typically about global affairs.

We are all customers and workers; we are people who get wary of the world. And that’s bad for business.

How to overcome this difficulty? That’s where businesses differ. If there were a universal fix, all businesses could stay alive.

My tiny tech company is alive by choice. I start my mornings choosing to find a way to stay in the game—which could sometimes mean cutting down on pizza and giving less money to Jeff. It could also mean doing our best to help wary people feel a little bit better, hoping they will buy in a good mood.

When the day comes when our choices no longer matter, when it’s completely out of our hands, then I know it’s time for this subatomic particle to change.

But even if that happens, one thing will remain constant: living will always be my choice, and that’s what makes business different from life.

That sounds counterproductive. We’re always encouraged to think big—for a good reason, too. The stakes are huge, whether it’s a small company or a humongous enterprise. Someone’s life is always involved in business—you must never undervalue that.

Thinking small doesn’t mean aiming for less or helping only a few. Aspirations are subjective. Some big companies want to take over the world. Mine is to simply solve problems with tech.

The problems we solve may not be as big as finding the cure for a terrible disease. But problems, no matter how small they are, are always connected to a bigger one. Solve a little problem at a time: tidy up a few lines of code, tell a user a nifty trick. No need to belittle your daily contributions. In a small-thinking world, every act of consideration counts.

Thinking small is a virtue. It promotes prudence. Nothing should go to waste if you have few resources. Take stock of what you have, like free tools and people with bright ideas. Use them to achieve big out of little effort. Take good care of them and they will likely stick around.

Our brain isn’t that big—approximately the size of ten tennis balls. Juggling ten tennis balls is not a good choice. You’re bound to drop a couple of them (unless you’re Alex Baron).

Think small. One ball at a time, if we must. Don’t approve a PR when you’re sitting in a meeting. Don’t sell a second service if you haven’t even mastered the first one. Think small—iteratively and synchronously. One small idea empirically evolving is the core of every invention. And we are here to keep inventing.

Big is not evil. Small isn’t that bad either. In tech, both moves the needle.

Big tech vs. Tiny tech—they are both full of stories we all want to learn from. This newsletter may be about small tech teams, but it doesn’t mean it’s not important.

Hi Readers,

Please inspire me to write more by engaging. We all need that tiny spark of encouragement.

M.S

That world has changed. Now, everyone’s lives are playing out on screen at thousands of megabytes per second. Who has the time, or the interest, to read blogs? Yet here I am, clinging to old ways.

Two years ago, a dear friend encouraged me to write a tech blog. We met on a Zoom call to talk about how tech blogging brought profound changes to our lives. It saved him from a life of poverty. It stirred me into finding my space in the industry.

Isn’t it amazing how stories can bring us to the right people at the right place and time - how they bridge opportunities and unexpected friendships? I promised this dear friend that I would write again. In fact, I made that promise to many people, who I ended up disappointing.

Twenty-five years of software engineering, two decades of parenting, forty-two years of discovering womanhood - surely I have enough stories worth writing. Surely, a handful of people would find some of it helpful.

Let me be honest, once and for all. I’m notorious for not following through my writing projects. I could come up with a thousand excuses. I could blame social media and my refusal to contribute to the digital noise. I could blame AI for being a more knowledgeable and articulate writer than I could ever be. Heck, I could even blame climate change for messing with my writing mood. But the truth is: I have no reason not to write. The same as you don’t have any reason not to be selective about what you read.  

Here's another confession and a kind of apology: I need to write, badly. And I need you, dear reader, the most. I apologize for putting this on you. I guess I have my reasons.

In the beginning of November, I was on a plane back to Denmark from Manila & I started watching a TED talk by Ethan Hawk on creativity. He said that art and self-expression is healing - that we help someone deal with their pain every time we express our own humanness – that when we open up, we send a signal out there that none of us are alone in our vulnerability.

Art? Open up? Vulnerable? How often do we see these in this industry? How much of our humanness do we still share in this piloted reality?

As the show finished with Ethan hawk strumming his guitar, the pilot’s choppy voice announced that we needed to go back to Manila due to a technical problem. We were told to find the closest emergency exit and read the safety cards in the seat pocket in front of us. As we hovered over the mountains with only the mechanic hissing of the propellers filling the void, all I could think about was dying. I thought: Great Marilag! You will die hugging your knees, on economy class, next to a hipster wearing a pink tie-dyed shirt and a silver nose ring.

Eerily enough, I felt more ready than I feared. But unlike in the movies where your whole life flashes before you, I didn’t think about how mine had been like, nothing about the legacy I’d leave, nor the lack of it. Instead, I thought about what life would be like without me, the unbearable pain for Erik, my kids and the people who love me. But then, time would pass. After a while, life would be somewhat okay again.

You see, dear readers, many of us are not okay right now. Sometimes it feels like the plane is just about to crash, that our existence is riddled with faulty machines. My job title for many years has been a solutions architect. I solve problems with (or in) tech. But problems never stop. Sometimes, in my pursuit of a viable solution, I end up with even more problems than the original one. But eventually, with the help from others, I do find a solution. I just needed time to think. And that’s what I will try my best to write about here. How to use time for thinking, understanding and accepting, so we can say with conviction that it’s going to be okay.

At the moment, I’m struggling to understand and accept many difficult and quite diverse challenges. How to run a profitable company with happy customers and equally happy colleagues. How to architect solutions that don’t hunt us in our sleep. How to empower software engineering teams. How to help communities. How to be a mother to young adults. How to balance ambition and wellness. How to be a friend. How to love more. How to heal.

I learned that if you want more readers of your blog, you should focus on only one topic. I’d like to think that you, dear reader, aren’t looking for only one problem to understand. That you and I are more alike. We’re multi-dimensional beings who absorb ideas from all points of view. We need to search high and low, shallow and deep, to find what we’re looking for. I guess what I’m searching for, who I’m writing for, is someone to keep me company, as I spend my time finding answers to these questions that no one can solve alone.

This year has been extra tough. I almost lost my company. I need time to understand how to be a better leader. I lost my beloved puppy, Frankie, to epilepsy so I need time to understand how not to let grief take over the best of you. I lost a friend to cancer, who I had a zoom call with two years ago about finally starting a tech blog. Sadly, he can no longer read this nor like any of my posts like he used to. I need time to understand why we’re still doing this, why we must keep on writing about tech and life and problem solving.

Perhaps, you’re also struggling to understand the same things that I am. If that’s why you’re here, then welcome to The Ladiebugged, the space where we can think together.

Who knows, maybe we could also be friends one day.

For now, thanks for simply being here to read. I really need that these days.