Matthew Orford https://mattheworford.dev Writing on data platforms, AI infrastructure, and the systems underneath them. The Real Lesson From Anthropic's AI Analytics Stack: Your Data Model Is the Product https://mattheworford.dev/blog/data-model-is-the-product The headline is Claude doing analytics. The actual story is the unglamorous work of making the data model usable. Sat, 06 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT What a Production Eval System Actually Looks Like https://mattheworford.dev/blog/production-eval-system A production eval system is not a notebook. It is an operational feedback loop, and the labels are usually the hard part. Mon, 13 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT Stop Building AI Features https://mattheworford.dev/blog/ai-features Some AI product work gets commoditized quickly. The durable work tends to live lower in the stack: data, permissions, workflows, and integrations. Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT Data Catalogs Are Only Useful If They Match Real Workflows https://mattheworford.dev/blog/data-catalogs-real-workflows Metadata catalogs fail when they become polished inventories. The useful ones fit the decisions people are already trying to make. Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT The Semantic Layer Is Execution Infrastructure Now https://mattheworford.dev/blog/semantic-layer-execution-infrastructure Agents turned semantic layers from BI cleanup into runtime infrastructure. Many AI reliability problems are really modeling problems. Tue, 13 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT You Don't Need a Maintenance Window to Upgrade Flink https://mattheworford.dev/blog/upgrading-stateful-flink Savepoints are great for recovery. They are a fragile deployment primitive once stateful jobs start evolving quickly. Tue, 21 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT From PM to SWE: What I Gained and What I Had to Unlearn https://mattheworford.dev/blog/pm-to-swe Moving from product to engineering gave me a better angle on systems work. It also forced me to unlearn some habits I did not know I had. Thu, 12 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMT Domain-Driven Pipelines Are Usually Worth the Mess https://mattheworford.dev/blog/domain-driven-pipelines One perfect data pipeline sounds clean until every domain needs it to mean something different. Wed, 19 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMT The Cake Pattern Is Probably Not What You Need https://mattheworford.dev/blog/di-in-scala The cake pattern is clever Scala. Constructor injection is usually the better default. Mon, 08 Apr 2024 00:00:00 GMT