about

I’m Leo Rabello. I’ve been building software for over a decade, mostly on the backend, and currently doing it as a Senior Software Engineer at Microsoft.

After ten years of shipping code, I’ve developed a very low tolerance for over-engineering, resume-driven development, and the obsession with reinventing the wheel. I have zero interest in solving solved problems from scratch just to make a CV look pretty. I don’t just care about making things work — I care about making them simple enough that the poor soul who inherits the codebase (likely me in six months) won’t want to hunt me down.

What I actually care about

• Pragmatic Craftsmanship: Clean code is great, but readable, maintainable code that actually delivers value is better.
• Systems that scale (properly): Distributed systems are hard enough; let’s stop making them harder with unnecessary complexity.
• Foundations over hype: Whether it’s Kubernetes, Platform Engineering, or Cloud Infrastructure, I’m interested in the abstractions that actually hold up under pressure.
• Automation as a Rule: If you’re doing it twice, you’re wasting time. If you’re doing it three times, you’re part of the problem.
• Functional Thinking: Immutability and composition aren’t just for academics—they’re how you keep a system from becoming a side-effect-ridden nightmare.

And yes, I’m leaning heavily into AI and Coding Agents. Not because I’m a hype-man, but because they are the most powerful (and dangerous) leverage we’ve ever had. If we don’t get the foundations right now, we’re just building a faster way to ship technical debt.

Why this blog?

I’m tired of the polished, “everything is awesome” corporate narrative. Writing is how I stress-test my own thinking. If I can’t explain it simply and honestly, I probably don’t understand it as well as I think I do.

Find me

If you missed the links in the header, I’m not sure I can help you with your more complex engineering problems.