TL;DR: I'm Eric - a principal engineer who solves problems you didn't know existed, teaches others to ask better questions, and believes the best meetings are the ones that never happen. I code with AI🤖, lift weights with my wife 💪, and tell people I "build websites."
The longer version
I'm Eric, based in Germany, and I've been in a committed relationship with code for over 15 years💻. Bachelor's, Master's, seven consecutive years in the industry - the whole nine yards of academic and professional devotion. These days, I work as a freelance web developer and coach at coding bootcamps, which is a fancy way of saying I solve problems in the morning and teach others to find better problems in the afternoon.
For me, coding isn't about having answers. It's about cultivating good questions🤔. The depth of questions you can ask directly reflects how well you can navigate complexity in your domain. Every junior developer I mentor starts by wanting the answers, but I teach them to fall in love with the questions. Good questions lead you to discover new things; you may even rediscover mundane things anew. Thinking in questions is a useful thing to do for yourself and others - because it's practical.
I despise meetings the way vampires despise garlic🧛♂️🧄. Not because I'm antisocial - I love people - but because most meetings are where time goes to die. Give me Slack any day. Text, emojis, async video messages - communication that respects the currency of life: time⏰. I take exactly zero notes. My brain is my notebook, and if something's important enough, it'll stick. If it doesn't, it probably wasn't worth the ink anyway.
I'm in love with AI❤️. Cursor, Claude Code - these aren't my replacements; they're my dance partners. People ask if I'm worried about AI taking my job. To be replaced after 15+ years of investment in this craft, shouldn't I be terrified?
No.
My technical heart beats for performance🚀. I squeeze every millisecond out of web apps like they owe me money. Next.js and Vercel are where I build, TailwindCSS how I style - and I'd rather eat glass than write CSS any other way.
I like to obsess over LeetCode problems and Advent of Code puzzles, but life isn't all code and keyboards. In my spare time, I'm a Les Mills BodyPump instructor🏋️♂️. My wife and I teach classes together. Two cats rule our home with the kind of benevolent dictatorship only felines can manage🐱👑.
I drive a Tesla decorated with vandalism scratches - monuments to public opinion about its CEO🚗; should've gotten that a sticker instead.
Welcome to Spirits Don't Fly👋. Here's where I document what I build, what I learn, and what I teach. No fluff, no meetings required.