Rebuilding My Portfolio in 2026

It's been three years since I last updated my portfolio. In that time, I've changed jobs, started a company, contributed to open source, and grown as an engineer. My old site no longer reflected who I am or what I do.

Why Rebuild?

The old site was built with a traditional multi-section template. It served its purpose, but it had problems:

• No blog — I had things to say but nowhere to say them
• Static content — Updating anything meant editing HTML
• No dark mode — It's 2026, come on
• Slow — Heavy assets, no optimization

The Stack

I went with Next.js 15 (App Router) + Tailwind CSS v4 + MDX for the blog. Here's why:

• Next.js on Vercel is a first-class deployment experience
• MDX lets me write blog posts in Markdown with React components
• Tailwind v4 is faster and simpler than ever
• next-themes makes dark/light mode trivial

Design Philosophy

I took inspiration from steipete.me — minimal, content-first, no visual clutter. The design principles:

1. Content is king — generous whitespace, readable typography
2. Fast — static generation, optimized images, minimal JavaScript
3. Accessible — semantic HTML, keyboard navigation, proper contrast
4. Dark mode first — because developers live in dark mode

What's Next

This is just the beginning. I plan to write about:

• Software architecture patterns I've learned at Marriott
• Building AI products from scratch at Xylo AI
• Open-source lessons from GLINCKER, GeoKit, and more
• The microservices migration playbook

If you're reading this, thanks for stopping by. More posts coming soon.