Writing

// engineering notes & technical write-ups

6 posts

I'm Enrolled in Two Universities at the Same Time. Here's Why

In June 2026 I enrolled in UoPeople's BS CS program while still at OAU. This is the honest version of why — not the CV answer.

Jun 09, 2026, 6:04 PM5 min read

224

#hackathon#nextjs#fastapi

We Built VeraDoc in 8 Days, Didn't Sleep the Last Night, and Still Missed the Cut — Here's What I Learned

We built an AI-powered document verification platform in 8 days, shipped it live, and still missed the top 50 cut at Squad Hackathon 3.0. This is the honest breakdown of what we built, how we built it, and where it fell apart.

May 18, 2026, 9:55 PM7 min read

287

#hackathon#building-in-public#ai-agents

We Shipped Without the Credits. Here's How the AMD Hackathon Actually Went.

Six days. One teammate dropped out. AMD credits never arrived. We switched stacks mid-build and submitted anyway. A debrief on building Redress at the AMD Developer Hackathon 2026.

May 10, 2026, 7:44 PM5 min read

445

#render#backend#devops

Your Render Free Tier Is Not Broken. It's Just Cold.

Render's free tier spins down after inactivity and your users pay for it in load times. Here's the fix — no credit card required.

Apr 30, 2026, 12:43 PM4 min read

2235

#building-in-public#nexjs#full-stack

I Built a Full-Stack AI Chat App. Here's What Actually Happened.

A honest debrief on building Cortexa — an AI chat platform with streaming, auth, model selection, voice input, and image upload — what I got right, what broke, and what I'd do differently.

Apr 20, 2026, 1:14 AM7 min read

397

#samkiel#personal#introduction

Hello, World — Welcome to My Corner of the Internet

Every developer's first program is Hello World. So it only felt right to start here.

Apr 13, 2026, 3:50 AM4 min read

338