An Old Dog's New Tricks

A series on adopting AI after 30 years in data engineering. The thrills, the stumbles, and the mindset shift that changes everything.

Part 1

I Asked AI to Write SQL After 30 Years of Doing It Myself

I know what "early" feels like. Novell replacing the VAX room. SQL Server on command line. Now AI. But this time, being early is humbling in a way I didn't expect.

Ken Whiteside July 2026 4 min read

Part 2

AI Broke My Code. Then I Learned to Coach It.

AI "optimized" a working stored procedure and the results went wrong. Here's the framework I built to make sure AI changes never break tested code again.

Ken Whiteside July 2026 5 min read

Part 3

The Hardest Part of Using AI Isn't the Tech — It's Your Own Brain

After 30 years of doing things by hand, muscle memory is your biggest obstacle. The daily discipline of asking "could AI do this?" is where the real transformation happens.

Ken Whiteside July 2026 4 min read

Part 4

How I Connected AI to Everything I Touch at Work

AI went from chatbot to control plane. Here's how I connected it to Snowflake, Jira, GitLab, Talend, and every other system I work with — one API token at a time.

Ken Whiteside July 2026 5 min read

Part 5

AI Has the Same Problem as Offshore Teams

AI without business context has the same problem as offshore outsourcing — fast output, wrong results. Domain expertise is the real differentiator.

Ken Whiteside July 2026 4 min read

Part 6

I Deployed Through a CI/CD Pipeline I'd Never Been Trained On

An emergency project, an unfamiliar deployment process, and zero training. Here's how documentation + AI + domain expertise got it done on the first try.

Ken Whiteside July 2026 5 min read