Robbie Marcelo
Leading, building, and staying curious.
Writing about management, agentic coding, and life in Tokyo.
Featured
The Language Your Team Carries
Your codebase inherits language that nobody decided on. A practical lens for engineering managers on what those defaults say, and how to change them.
Japanese Forms, Foreign Names, and Why They Don't Mix
After getting my drivers license, I tried to sign up for car sharing. Every form wanted my name in a different format. I wanted to understand why.
Latest
How I Got My Japanese Driver's Licence (The Hard Way)
Five months, multiple trips to the licence centre, and a stack of used paid holidays. Getting a driver's licence in Tokyo is a journey.
Mini Shai Hulud: Inside a Self-Spreading npm Supply Chain Attack
Mini Shai Hulud was a self-spreading npm worm that hit packages across 20+ organizations in a day. This post breaks down how it worked, how to check for it, and how I automated the response.
The Team Member Everyone Had Written Off
I inherited a team member with a string of negative performance evaluations. Their peers told a different story. How I formed my own view instead of inheriting the narrative.
Right Feedback, Wrong Frame
A senior engineer's thorough code review left a new graduate in tears. Neither person was wrong. But both needed something the other couldn't provide without a translator in the room.
Your Manager Changed. Your Coach Didn't.
A re-org. A one-month deadline. And two direct reports who needed to move to a different manager. What I said to them, and what I kept doing afterward.
My Gomi Guide: Solving the Four-Bin Problem
Four bins, five collection days, and a poster I kept re-reading from the top. So I built a tool to stop holding that in my head.