Writing by Ari Wilsonhttps://www.ariwilson.com/en-ushttps://www.ariwilson.com/writing/bakeoff-announcement/https://www.ariwilson.com/writing/bakeoff-announcement/About a month ago I was laid off from VideoAmp, four months into my first executive role. I’m ok enough to write about it now. In 18 years, it was the first time I’d been let go. My first reaction was fear: I’m my family’s main provider. My second was doubt about whether I was…Thu, 10 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.ariwilson.com/writing/agentic-engineering-management/https://www.ariwilson.com/writing/agentic-engineering-management/Some of the engineering management skills I spent years developing are becoming less valuable. I’m mostly happy about it. I used to take a lot of pride in technical intuition. For example: - Guessing how long an implementation would take after a short discussion with the product…Wed, 05 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.ariwilson.com/writing/40/https://www.ariwilson.com/writing/40/I'm 40 now - I can't believe it's been 10 years since my 'turning 30' post on the blog. I celebrated by renting out a movie theater for some epic local multiplayer gaming (go Overcooked and Halo Reach!) with old friends from high school, college, and work who came in from all…Wed, 22 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.ariwilson.com/writing/aris-next-journey-at-videoamp/https://www.ariwilson.com/writing/aris-next-journey-at-videoamp/Four days in at VideoAmp, and I'm already uncomfortably excited. I'm here to build an AI-native software engineering organization - and help reshape an advertising company for what comes next. Joining the full LA tech brain trust: Dustin Jackson, Michael Rosett, Alex Monroe, and…Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.ariwilson.com/writing/an-update-on-ari-at-celonis/https://www.ariwilson.com/writing/an-update-on-ari-at-celonis/I told everyone I'd stay at Celonis for a max of 2 years. I stayed for 4. When you go from unboxing a pallet of monitors in the service elevator to the Celonis Los Angeles office becoming the one people across the company want to visit - that was hard to walk away from. Four…Wed, 15 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.ariwilson.com/writing/a-wise-engineering-director-once-said/https://www.ariwilson.com/writing/a-wise-engineering-director-once-said/Some reposts from LinkedIn, in case you are anti-social network: November 2024 How to become a great interviewer Interviewing is a chore that we do because we want to work at a place with people we admire and like. However, that justification by itself is rather uninspiring. I…Mon, 11 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.ariwilson.com/writing/dad-x2/https://www.ariwilson.com/writing/dad-x2/It's my last weekend of my paternity leave with my baby girl Ariana and I thought I'd ruminate a bit on life. Not that I get much time to do that these days. Ariana is fantastic. She's extremely active and is always reaching for things just beyond her grasp. She loves standing…Fri, 02 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.ariwilson.com/writing/ari-career-update-google-celonis/https://www.ariwilson.com/writing/ari-career-update-google-celonis/13.5 years (97.5%ile of active employees), 19 offices visited across 5 continents, 16.5 hours of massage credits, reward trips/holiday parties/offsites galore and untold lattes, omelets, and delicious lunches later... I'm leaving Google to get LA/US engineering off the ground at…Mon, 28 Feb 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.ariwilson.com/writing/new-year-new-thoughts/https://www.ariwilson.com/writing/new-year-new-thoughts/Happy 2022 y'all. It's the year with the most 2s in it of my lifetime and likely my son's lifetime. In my book, 1s are for new beginnings but 2s are for seeing things through. So here's hoping you see through everything important in your life. I had a couple of weeks off of work…Mon, 17 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.ariwilson.com/writing/im-father/https://www.ariwilson.com/writing/im-father/This is the last weekend I'm on paternity leave for our beautiful baby Reece, who just turned 6 months old yesterday. Please excuse the gratuitous baby pic. He's literally the cutest entity that has ever existed, in my completely unbiased opinion. Some of the highlights of the…Sun, 01 Aug 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.ariwilson.com/writing/clearcut/https://www.ariwilson.com/writing/clearcut/Was just playing around with Unity this weekend and thought other people might enjoy my Tetris-like game. It's pretty early and buggy, but please enjoy Clearcut! Note: Control game with arrow keys only. Touch support coming sometime!Mon, 18 Feb 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.ariwilson.com/writing/juiced-crosscurrent-s-700-mile-review/https://www.ariwilson.com/writing/juiced-crosscurrent-s-700-mile-review/I've ridden my Juiced CrossCurrent S with the 17.4 Ah battery/default tires around 700 miles now, almost all commuting 28.8 mi round trip (1h35m riding time) along 80% beach path/protected bike path and 20% paved roads with no recharge from work. Observations. Good: - My…Sun, 05 Nov 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.ariwilson.com/writing/30/https://www.ariwilson.com/writing/30/This April I turned 30. I celebrated by traveling throughout Southern California with my family and friends. Thanks everyone who was involved, especially my lovely wife who organized and made everything amazing! Just one quick picture with some of the folks involved in Big Bear…Mon, 02 May 2016 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.ariwilson.com/writing/santa-monica-breeze-bike-share-review/https://www.ariwilson.com/writing/santa-monica-breeze-bike-share-review/Two things I never thought would happen in my lifetime: Efficient rail transportation in Los Angeles Well, this hasn't actually appeared yet but this recently showed up at an intersection near my house: So I am hopeful that, come May 20th, I'll actually be able to go somewhere…Sat, 02 Apr 2016 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.ariwilson.com/writing/blockfort/https://www.ariwilson.com/writing/blockfort/I just released an alpha version of a new HTML5 game, called BlockFort. Screenshot: It's similar to the creative mode of Minecraft, without all the unfun exploring and mining ;). Saves are backed up to the cloud so can be restored if you start playing on the PC and want to make…Thu, 18 Dec 2014 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.ariwilson.com/writing/my-grandmother/https://www.ariwilson.com/writing/my-grandmother/My grandmother Sylvia passed away on Sunday at the age of 95. She lived a very full life and passed on surrounded by family and friends. The Tennessean has written up a very nice obituary. With that in mind, I thought this might be a good time to re-post an essay I originally…Tue, 25 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.ariwilson.com/writing/programming-languages/https://www.ariwilson.com/writing/programming-languages/Here are some gross oversimplifications and generalizations of when to use programming languages I've had the (mis)fortune to work with recently: - C++ - when you want to write fast code, you're working on a team, and you can afford to spend time dealing with its warts (lack of…Wed, 06 Jun 2012 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.ariwilson.com/writing/scrabblish/https://www.ariwilson.com/writing/scrabblish/I just released a new webapp, called Scrabblish. It's similar to Scrabulizer in that it gives you all the possible words you can play on a given Scrabble board, sorted by point value. Use it by typing in your board configuration and tiles, in all capital letters, and hitting…Fri, 07 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.ariwilson.com/writing/keestand/https://www.ariwilson.com/writing/keestand/Hi everyone! I know it's been a while since I posted here but I've been pretty busy working at Google and what not between all of the vacations :). Anyway, I've had a little free time lately and I managed to put together what I think is a pretty cool site called KeeStand.…Mon, 17 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT