My 2026 Developer Tech Stack

This year, my work shifted from "write code" to "orchestrate systems." That means communicating well, taking great notes, and using AI tools to enhance my thinking rather than replace it.

I work on a 14" M2 MacBook Pro. I'm a big fan of the M-series chips - my M2 hasn't slowed down yet. I prefer portability over screen size since I do a lot of work from kitchen counters and coffee shops.

At my desk, I run dual 27" 4K monitors with the Mac in clamshell mode, plus a Logitech MX Keys keyboard and MX Master 3 mouse - a setup that hasn't changed in years.

I'm also getting more done on my phone than ever - currently a Pixel 10 Pro. I've been eyeing Nothing phones lately; their quirky-meets-minimal design ethos is appealing.

E-paper devices have been in and out of my bag this year. A friend gifted me a Daylight Computer, which I use for reading and notes. I also briefly had a Boox Palma 2 - a sublime phone-sized e-reader I loved until its fragile screen broke. Glad I paid for the extended warranty.

The biggest change from last year? My software stack changes regularly now. I've flipped between IDEs, switched note-taking apps, and dabbled with AI tools across the spectrum - from ChatGPT and Gemini, to Copilot and Cursor and Claude Code, to fully-local models via Ollama.

The takeaway: flexibility beats loyalty. Tools are changing fast, and it's worth trying new ones to see what fits.

Here's what I'm currently using:

Claude Code lets me stay in the role I'm best at: planner, architect, reviewer, unblocker. I spend less time executing and more time shaping the work. Critically, it doesn't replace my judgment - it multiplies it. I've been reviewing code for years, and Claude keeps me reading code and providing active feedback. I'm not writing zero code, but I am writing a lot less.

MCPs are the quiet unlock. They connect Claude Code to real systems instead of isolated prompts - repos, tickets, docs, logs, all linked. This is what turns AI from a clever assistant into something that can reason alongside you.

I take loads of notes - meetings, calls, books, friends, articles, you name it. I switched from Logseq to Obsidian this year due to an ongoing macOS bug that made Logseq painfully slow. Obsidian is fine, but it suffers from Notion's curse: it's too easy to get distracted perfecting your setup instead of using the tool.

Raycast replaces Spotlight on macOS. It's more than a launcher - I use it for translations (English ↔ Spanish), looking up Tailwind classes, finding Lucide icons, and dozens of other small utilities throughout my day.

WisprFlow is a voice-to-text tool that runs locally on your Mac. Talk to your computer and it turns into text. I'm a fan of multimodal input; I spent years on the Google Assistant team waiting for seamless switching between typing and talking. WisprFlow delivers that, and it understands code-speak surprisingly well. Say "users slash mike" and it outputs users/mike. I use it constantly now for thoughts while walking, rough designs, notes to myself, and messages to teammates.

Linear is still the backbone of planning for my team. It's where our shared understanding of the work plan lives. It's also where we share context with LLMs via MCPs, meaning Claude Code can read and update Linear tickets as work gets done. This helps documentation happen automatically instead of as an afterthought.

The way we build software at Craftwork is changing too. We use TypeScript for most of our code now, steadily moving away from Ruby on Rails. The app lives in a monorepo: Next.js, React, TypeScript, OpenAPI, tRPC, and Postgres. We also rely on a handful of third-party tools: PostHog for analytics, Render for hosting, Sentry for errors, Stripe for payments, and Twilio for voice/SMS.

This is the year I started viewing my 20+ years of writing code as a replaceable commodity. Thanks to LLMs, the difference between an engineer and a 10x engineer is no longer code. It's context, collaboration, and communication, with humans and machines alike.

Many devs struggle with this. I share my tools and workflow because I find it helpful when others do the same, but ultimately the tools are worthless without the people. Bring humanity, creativity, and humility to your work. Invest in yourself.