Nick Berardi

That is the whole editorial line, and it is the reason this site exists again. AI is going to change every aspect of how we look at life — I am genuinely, unreasonably excited about it — and the only version worth building is the one that leaves a person more capable at the end of the day than they were at the start.

I am a software engineer. That is the part that has never changed. I started publishing here in 2007 because I could not shut up about ASP.NET routing, and I kept going for seven years and 327 posts. These days my job title says executive and my calendar agrees, but the thing I actually am is the person who still wants to know how it works underneath.

Right now that means Alexa+ at Amazon — ambient assistance that has to earn its place in somebody’s kitchen, which is a much harder bar than a benchmark. Before that, a long run of building teams and shipping systems that mostly nobody sees.

Outside the day job, the two things I am proudest of are not software. The Berardi Student Engagement Center exists because students need somewhere to actually be together, and I got to help fund it. And I serve on IPAC, the Industrial & Professional Advisory Council at Penn State’s College of IST, which is a formal way of saying I get to argue with faculty about what the next generation of engineers should be taught.