From jazz piano to shipping software

What years at the piano taught me about building software: preparation, response, and long arcs.

Before I built software I played jazz piano. I still think the way that training taught me to think.

Improvisation is not making things up from nothing. It is deep preparation meeting the willingness to respond to what is actually happening in the room. You learn the language for years so that in the moment you can stop thinking about it and just answer. The best nights were the ones where the plan fell away and something better showed up.

Building is the same. You learn the craft until the tools are under your fingers, and then the interesting work is responsive: you ship something, the world answers, and you play the next phrase based on what you heard, not what you scripted a month ago.

Jazz also taught me about long arcs. A good solo is not a pile of clever licks; it goes somewhere. It builds tension, holds it, and resolves it when the resolution has been earned. I try to build products the same way, in movements rather than in feature lists.

And it taught me to iterate out loud. You do not find the phrase by thinking harder in silence; you find it by playing, listening, adjusting, playing again. I still work like that. I riff, I ship, I listen, I go again.

Different instrument now. Same instinct.