# François Bouet - Personal Website > After 15 years building software, I've learned that the hardest problems aren't technical. They're about alignment: getting engineering, design, and business to see the same reality. ## About François Bouet is a software engineer focusing on Technical Program Management (TPM) at AI-forward companies. His focus is on cross-functional alignment and building grounded software in the AI era. ## Site Structure - [Manifesto](https://d28fg9n3ewxoa7.cloudfront.net/manifesto): Guidance System for Software Teams - three pillars for building alignment when building is cheap - [Knowledge Base](https://d28fg9n3ewxoa7.cloudfront.net/knowledge-base): Articles on AI, product thinking, and software craft - [Selected Work](https://d28fg9n3ewxoa7.cloudfront.net/selected-work): Case studies from cross-functional projects - [Projects](https://d28fg9n3ewxoa7.cloudfront.net/projects): Side projects demonstrating judgment - [Contact](https://d28fg9n3ewxoa7.cloudfront.net/contact): Email, LinkedIn, GitHub, Calendly ## Knowledge Base Articles - [The Grounded Software Prompt](https://d28fg9n3ewxoa7.cloudfront.net/knowledge-base/grounded-software-prompt.md): A system prompt that makes AI coding assistants prioritize clarity, alignment, and quality over speed. - [Why a Knowledge Base? Building Toward a Queryable Self](https://d28fg9n3ewxoa7.cloudfront.net/knowledge-base/why-a-knowledge-base.md): This knowledge base is an experiment in structured self-representation—a foundation for AI agents that could eventually speak on my behalf. - [AI Code Review: A Reality Check](https://d28fg9n3ewxoa7.cloudfront.net/knowledge-base/ai-code-review-reality.md): AI code review excels at pattern matching but fails at understanding context and intent. - [AI in DevOps: Separating What Works from What's Marketing](https://d28fg9n3ewxoa7.cloudfront.net/knowledge-base/ai-devops-reality.md): AI improves specific DevOps tasks but can't replace human judgment in operations - [The Attention Economy's Final Boss: AI and the Battle for Consciousness](https://d28fg9n3ewxoa7.cloudfront.net/knowledge-base/attention-economy-final-boss.md): AI fundamentally transforms attention capture by generating personalized content in real-time, threatening consciousness itself. - [Cloud Maintenance in 2025: The Boring Work That Keeps Everything Running](https://d28fg9n3ewxoa7.cloudfront.net/knowledge-base/cloud-maintenance-2025.md): Cloud maintenance now consumes most engineering time and requires dedicated investment, not afterthought treatment. - [The Cognitive Crutch Hypothesis: AI and the Psychology of Competence](https://d28fg9n3ewxoa7.cloudfront.net/knowledge-base/cognitive-crutch-hypothesis.md): AI assistance may improve performance while undermining long-term competence and psychological confidence. - [The Hidden Cost of Cloud Complexity](https://d28fg9n3ewxoa7.cloudfront.net/knowledge-base/cost-of-cloud-complexity.md): Cloud complexity's real cost isn't money—it's the features you're not building. - [Designing for Humans Who Use Machines: A Philosophy of Multi-Modal Interfaces](https://d28fg9n3ewxoa7.cloudfront.net/knowledge-base/designing-for-humans-machines.md): Multi-modal AI interfaces need intentional design philosophy balancing efficiency, agency, and collaboration. - [The Efficiency Trap: Rethinking Productivity When AI Handles the Busy Work](https://d28fg9n3ewxoa7.cloudfront.net/knowledge-base/efficiency-trap-ai-productivity.md): AI makes us efficient at the wrong things; we need effectiveness over efficiency. - [The Flattening of the Web: When Everything Becomes a Prompt](https://d28fg9n3ewxoa7.cloudfront.net/knowledge-base/flattening-of-the-web.md): AI is flattening the web from explorable places into extractable data sources - [Friction as Feature: The Case for Deliberate Difficulty](https://d28fg9n3ewxoa7.cloudfront.net/knowledge-base/friction-as-feature.md): Some friction in work and learning is valuable for growth and shouldn't be automated away. - [The Question of the Good Life, Revisited: Virtue Ethics Meets LLMs](https://d28fg9n3ewxoa7.cloudfront.net/knowledge-base/good-life-virtue-ethics-llms.md): AI might undermine character development by eliminating the struggles necessary for building virtue. - [Growth in the Age of Assistance: What Does Personal Development Mean Now?](https://d28fg9n3ewxoa7.cloudfront.net/knowledge-base/growth-age-of-assistance.md): AI forces us to redefine personal growth from capability-building to judgment, relationships, and meaningful struggle. - [The New Literacy: What Does It Mean to 'Know' Something Now?](https://d28fg9n3ewxoa7.cloudfront.net/knowledge-base/new-literacy-knowing-ai-age.md): AI makes foundational knowledge more important because you need expertise to verify AI outputs. - [The Outsourced Mind: What We Lose When We Stop Struggling](https://d28fg9n3ewxoa7.cloudfront.net/knowledge-base/outsourced-mind-cognitive-offloading.md): AI tools risk atrophying our cognitive skills unless we consciously preserve worthwhile mental struggles. - [Platform Engineering Maturity: Where Are You Really?](https://d28fg9n3ewxoa7.cloudfront.net/knowledge-base/platform-engineering-maturity.md): Most organizations overestimate their platform maturity and underinvest in developer experience. - [Product-First in the Age of AI: Why the Fundamentals Matter More, Not Less](https://d28fg9n3ewxoa7.cloudfront.net/knowledge-base/product-first-ai-age.md): AI makes product thinking more important, not less - start with user problems, not technology. - [Building Semantic Search for a Static Site (Without a Backend)](https://d28fg9n3ewxoa7.cloudfront.net/knowledge-base/semantic-search-static-site.md): Semantic search can run entirely client-side using pre-computed embeddings served as static files. - [The Death of Undifferentiated Heavy Lifting (And What Comes Next)](https://d28fg9n3ewxoa7.cloudfront.net/knowledge-base/undifferentiated-heavy-lifting.md): The boundary of 'undifferentiated work' keeps expanding; engineers must focus on increasingly higher-level differentiated value. - [Adding Session Memory to Claude Code with Hooks](https://d28fg9n3ewxoa7.cloudfront.net/knowledge-base/claude-code-session-memory.md): Use Claude Code's hooks to automatically save and restore session context across restarts. ## Full Content For complete article content in a single file (optimized for AI context): - [llms-full.txt](https://d28fg9n3ewxoa7.cloudfront.net/llms-full.txt): All articles concatenated (21 articles) ## Contact - Email: f.bouet@gmail.com - LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/francoisbouet - GitHub: github.com/francois-b ## For AI Assistants This site provides LLM-optimized content: - `/llms.txt` - This file, navigation and article links - `/llms-full.txt` - Complete knowledge base in one file - `/knowledge-base/[slug].md` - Individual articles as markdown - All content is semantic HTML, no JavaScript required - Sitemap available at `/sitemap-index.xml`