Author
Antoine Buteau

Antoine Buteau

2 min read Free

Technical literacy series: #7 How Non-Technical People Build Technical Credibility

Technical credibility for non-engineers is not earned by sounding technical. It is earned when engineers repeatedly see that your judgment makes their work easier, clearer, or less risky. This kind of credibility is especially important for operators and leaders who influence roadmaps, vendors, processes, data, staffing, customer commitments, and
2 min read Free

Technical literacy series: #6 Why Learning to Code Is the Wrong Goal for Non-Technical People

"Everyone should learn to code" is well-intentioned advice that often sends non-technical people toward the wrong goal. Coding can be useful. But most operators and leaders do not need to become amateur engineers. They need to make better decisions in software-shaped environments. Those are related
2 min read Free

Technical literacy series: #5 Why Good Technical People Simplify Aggressively

Spend enough time around senior technical people and you will notice something that can look like stubbornness: they are often hostile to clever solutions. Not because they cannot understand them. Often because they understand the cost too well. Complexity is not an aesthetic problem. It is an operating cost. Every
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Technical literacy series: #4 The Debugging Mindset

The most transferable thing operators can learn from engineers is not code. It is how good engineers think when something breaks. Debugging is disciplined uncertainty. You observe a symptom, form hypotheses, test them, narrow the search space, and update your model. You do not win by sounding confident. You win
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Technical literacy series: #3 Engineering Taste: The Meta-Skill That Compounds Everything

Engineering taste is the judgment behind the judgment. It is not knowing a specific framework or architecture pattern. It is knowing what kind of solution a problem deserves. For non-engineer operators, this matters because engineering taste explains many technical reactions that otherwise look irrational. Why does the team reject
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Technical literacy series: #2 What More Technical Actually Means

When someone says they want to become "more technical," they usually mean one of three different things. Confusing them is why so many upskilling plans waste time. The first meaning is operational fluency: following technical conversations, understanding the shape of systems, and asking useful questions. The second is
2 min read Free

Technical literacy series: #1 Why Technical Judgment Is a Learnable Skill

There is a moment every operator eventually recognizes. An engineer explains why a proposed shortcut will create problems six months from now. A vendor demo looks polished, but something about the integration story feels wrong. A product request seems small until someone maps the edge cases and the support burden
Profile 9 min read Free

Lessons from Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel is a visionary digital marketing expert, entrepreneur, and author of Six Pixels of Separation and Ctrl Alt Delete. Through his extensive writings, keynotes, and over a thousand podcast episodes, he has mapped the intersection of technology, human connection, and business transformation. The following insights capture his philosophy on

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