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ctrl+r #08: 2026's AI wake-up call, voice-first workflows, and the data engineer identity crisis

From Karpathy's grief cycle to Hyprnote workflows, plus why companies are locking down their APIs

·2 min read·
dataengineeringsoftwareengineeringai

🧠 2026 is when you can’t ignore AI in your work

I’ve been playing with AI since 2024. I remember trying out Cursor for the first time and being mind-blown by how good it was... but it was actually BAD in absolute terms. It could only edit one file, and code quality was meh.

In 2026, we reached a tipping point where AI is so good—especially at coding—that you can’t ignore it in your work anymore.

I’ve always experimented with AI and different workflows, mostly around prompts and some limited MCP services. In 2026, I need to master more of these workflows.

Specifically, I’m interested in diving deeper into:

  • GitHub spec kit

  • Claude skills

  • Building various MCPs for my daily work

  • Working with multiple sub-agents and pushing work async as a reviewer

  • How to manage memory for AI

Some powerful alien tool was handed around except it comes with no manual and everyone has to figure out how to hold it and operate it, while the resulting magnitude 9 earthquake is rocking the profession. Roll up your sleeves to not fall behind. - Andrej Karpathy

🛠️ More voice, less typing

I’ve been experimenting with voice recording tools, specifically for:

  • Meetings where I’m not in control of recording notes

  • Meetings where I don’t want to send the AI summary

  • For myself—spending more time speaking than writing

  • Not having a big red button “Recording in progress”

I think the exercise of writing is still important, of course, but there’s something nice about speaking freely and getting a summary or reordering of your thoughts.

I stumbled on two nice open-source products: meetly and hyprnote.

I went with Hyprnote because it’s just markdown (yeah!) and I love their philosophy on not wanting to compete with tools like Obsidian, as described in their latest blog post “Filesystem is the cortex”.

I’m still figuring out my workflows, but all in all, it’s working pretty nicely!

📚 What I read/watched


Last saturday was my last day of skiing with full powder before going back to work after my parental leave!