Jimmy Van Veen · Web engineer · Greater Boston
I build software, write down what I learn, and race cars on the internet.
A working portfolio — projects I’ve shipped, notes from the workshop, and the occasional lap at Talladega. The interesting stuff is in the writing.
Recent writing
All posts →The Window I Wanted to Work In
Atrium is a single calm window that holds every project I have running. This is why I built it, why the best decision I made was about what it would refuse to do, and what building the exact tool you want for an audience of one says about how I work.
The App My Wife Opened First
What a few evenings of directing Claude Code on top of years of engineering taste buys: a custom progressive web app for my family's Disney World trip that my wife reached for first, every day.
Outrunning the Bear: A Realistic Guide to Starting Your Web Development Career
In the age of AI, developers don't need to outrun the bear (AI taking our jobs)—we just need to be harder to replace than others. While AI excels at writing code and debugging, it fails at navigating organizational dynamics, owning consequences, and understanding unwritten requirements. The developers who will thrive are those who master the "human layer"—leveraging AI as a tool while focusing on messy legacy systems, institutional knowledge, and unsexy but irreplaceable work like bug triage and team building. The key isn't coding better than AI, but providing value beyond writing functions: being accountable, bridging technical and non-technical worlds, and functioning effectively within an organization.
