Nessa Jane Marin

Nessa Jane Marin

Software Engineer, Manager, Coach

A blog about what I'm doing on my computer...

What I’m tending now

A few ideas and projects I’m actively working through.

I’m in a hands-on leadership season: returning to deep technical work while carrying what I learned from years of management. Right now I’m thinking about influence without authority, building sustainably with teams, and staying grounded as AI changes our craft.

Returning to IC Leadership

Re-learning technical influence and collaboration through practice, not title.

🌿 Latest update: Now

Coaching Neurodivergent Tech Folks

Growing practical, compassionate support for engineers and managers who want to lead well.

🌳 Latest update: Coaching

Pathways

If you're here for something specific, start with one of these trails.

Engineering Craft

For engineers who care about thoughtful technical craft

Leadership in Practice

For leads navigating people, influence, and technical depth

Coaching & Growth

For neurodivergent tech folks focused on sustainable growth

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Quick Thoughts

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I needed somewhere to put my tweets that wasn't twitter, or bluesky, or mastodon, or...

Recent Shares

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Stop Prompting, Start Coaching code
🌱 Planted March 29, 2026 · Tended March 29, 2026 · 9 min read

What Co-Active coaching taught me about getting better results from AI coding agents, and what treating an agent like a capable collaborator actually looks like in practice.

aiagentic codingcoaching
Learning Agentic Coding On a Budget code
🌱 Planted March 16, 2026 · Tended March 24, 2026 · 10 min read

Budget-friendly approaches to learning agentic coding without expensive API tokens.

aisoftware engineeringlearningagentic coding
It took me a year to write about AI and all I got was this stupid blog post... leadership
🌱 Planted March 5, 2026 · Tended March 19, 2026 · 6 min read

After more than a year of thinking, listening, and learning, I finally write about AI — the concerns, the nuance, and why I'm both an optimist and a skeptic.

aileadershipsoftware engineering
How to Learn a Programming Language in 7 Days code
🌳 Planted August 28, 2025 · Tended March 19, 2026 · 9 min read

Learn from a polyglot of 15 years how to pick up new languages quickly

languages
Undeleting Myself: Embracing Cringe and the Joy of Code leadership
🌳 Planted August 23, 2025 · Tended March 19, 2026 · 9 min read

Once upon a time, I was told 'if you need this to be fun, this probably isn't the job for you'...

neurodivergencelearninggrowthleadership
Declarative is the Wrong Goal code
🌱 Planted December 30, 2015 · Tended March 19, 2026 · 2 min read

Here lie half-baked thoughts…

half-bakedfunctional programming