Jerome Hardaway
About Jerome
Nights and weekends, I run Vets Who Code — the nonprofit software engineering accelerator I started in 2014 to get veterans into tech. We've trained 300+ vets at a 94%+ placement rate, and along the way we automated almost everything about running the org except the part that should never be automated: dealing with humans. We did that before AI made it the thing to do. Right now my focus is teaching the current accelerator and building out our Software Factory, where our veteran engineers ship real production work — we've got our first two clients in flight, a Youth Villages case study to close out, and interface decisions to make on J0DI3, our internal AI tool. My day job is at Accenture Federal Services as an AI LLM Technology Architecture Manager, where I get to work on real problems that impact Americans every day — at a scale I haven't felt since my military days.
What I've been thinking about
The most underrated thing automation buys you isn't speed — it's room to be more human where it actually matters. We automated our nonprofit's operations years before AI was fashionable, specifically so the people in it could spend their energy on each other instead of on busywork.
Pinpoint for Professionals
Pinpoint for Professionals (Google). I run it in tandem with NotebookLM, and the pairing is what makes it click. Pinpoint is built for analyzing large collections of documents — search, filter, transcribe, and organize thousands of PDFs, images, and audio files, then use Gemini to answer research questions with the supporting evidence pulled from your own documents. NotebookLM is where I think out loud and turn sources into something I can learn from off the screen; Pinpoint is the heavier workbench when the document pile gets serious. Worth saying: I got into the Professional tier through my work with Vets Who Code and my writing for the Stack Overflow Blog and the GitHub ReadME Project — it's still gated for journalists and academics, with 100 GB of storage, priority processing, and early feature access over the free version.
→ VisitPomelli
Pomelli (Google Labs + DeepMind). This one's for the marketing side of running a nonprofit. You give it your website, it analyzes your site and existing images to build a "Business DNA" profile — your tone of voice, fonts, color palette, visual style — then generates on-brand campaign ideas and editable assets you can push across social and ads. For a small team that can't staff a creative department, it gets you to agency-level brand consistency fast. It's free in public beta and recently expanded to over 170 countries, so it's easy to try.
→ VisitSkill Issue: Harness Engineering for Coding Agents
This is a great blog on harness engineering. I started learning Harness Engineering from the position of coding a month ago because I had a troop who is OpenClaw cracked. I love J.P., but I am one of those old people who watched all the movies where AI is given too much trust so while I passed on giving a model access to my entire life, I definitely want to see how I can create a harness around the stuff that existed to create reliable high quality outputs for code, and I double-downed on the effort with the Fable 5 drama. For the work most of us do, the current models are fine, especially if you have experience or willing to learn the gaps you have and it helps you do the work you need to do if you're in a situation like I sometimes am, where I don't have access to the best model all the time because of whatever is going on in the government at that time, so I have to create harnesses to get the quality out of an older model.
→ Visit
What I'm thinking about
I'm realizing months of brainstorming, questioning, researching, and writing as I begin submitting my book proposal to publishing houses. Introducing my book baby to the publishing world has been nerve-racking! It's also been a reminder that I love building and taking on new things. I'm also creating a new workshop and doing a kind of personal OKR planning for the next quarter, so I'll keep you posted on my summer plans once I have them 🙂
SPDY STREAM 038 with Barry Pollard of Google and the Chrome User Experience Report
This live session features guest Barry Pollard, Web Performance Advocate for Google. They discuss CrUX, detail how to operationalize the Daily API for rapid regression feedback and the Historical API to monitor continuous deployment trends.
→ VisitI Build Robots That Restore Ecosystems. Here's Why AI Is Being Used for the Opposite
As a founding team member of Google X with deep expertise in autonomous systems, Tom Chi tells us why we're choosing the wrong path for robotics—and what we can do to change course.
→ VisitThe Bullwhip's Algorithm: Artificial Intelligence and America's Racial Caste System
I had the pleasure of working with Kamau during my time at Google. He was always a source of uniquely thoughtful discussion. In The Bullwhip's Algorithm, he argues that "AI is not arriving on neutral ground. Whether AI becomes a force for justice in education, or a modern enforcer of the bullwhip's logic will depend on our commitment to confronting our nation's past and unfinished struggle for racial justice." Preorder at the link!
→ Visit
What I'm thinking about
I can't stop thinking about how tacky Taylor Swift's wedding was (sorry Swifties). Taylor, Travis, and 1,300 of their closest friends at Madison Square Garden, which just hosted the NBA conference finals and now an overindulgent celebrity wedding. Neither of them is even from New York. 40-minute vows. Jumbotrons flashing "JUST&T MARRIED." Adam Sandler officiated. Raffles. T-shirt cannon (okay, I made that one up). All of it is so cringe. 🥴
Beehiiv
After 10 years of using Mailchimp for our newsletters, a buggy interface and costs that only went up, we moved our relaunched newsletter to Beehiiv. It's FREE under 2,500 subscribers, the UI actually works, and it has growth tools like referral programs and cross-newsletter recommendations built in (Mailchimp charges extra for both).
→ VisitThe Modern Leader
Kelly Vaughn (engineering leader at Zapier) writes The Modern Leader weekly on running teams with clarity and less stress. Even if you're not a manager, topics like "The danger of being too useful," "The trap of being promoted from within," and "Finding the line between top-down and bottom-up decisions" can help ICs better understand how to navigate their careers.
→ VisitDesus Pieces
If you're like me, you were heartbroken when Desus and Mero split a few years back killing both the Bodega Boys podcast and their hit Showtime show with no notice. The good news is Desus is back, solo, with Desus Pieces, a new show on his new YouTube channel mixing on camera segments with NYC bits.
→ Visit
What I'm thinking about
Maybe it's the summer solstice, maybe it's just the middle of the year, but I'm deep into self-reflection and thoughts.
DISC Assessment
I'm really embracing the Know Thyself idea this month and I found the DISC assessment helpful (DiSC is an acronym that stands for the four main personality profiles described in the DiSC model: Dominance, influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness). Here's a free one!
→ VisitDavid Senra
I've been listening to David Senra's podcast because he dives deep while interviewing very interesting people. I don't always like the people, but there's usually something pretty interesting as food for thought! (wherever you get your podcasts)
→ VisitAI Tinkerers Atlanta
I haven't made it to an event yet, but they sure do look good! I hope to make it to one soon! The AI Tinkerers Atlanta chapter has a lot of interesting events that look worth checking out!
→ VisitFrom the Community
Recommendations from the people who show up.
Nerando Johnson
Previous REFACTR talks:
The Programming Podcast
Deep dives into programming, technology, and career growth with Leon Noel and Danny Thompson. Real talk about AI, career advice, and everything developers need to thrive.
→ VisitNerando Johnson
Previous REFACTR talks:
We've Been Here Since the Beginning: 2025 Edition
Abbey Perini profiles the queer, Black, and trans pioneers who shaped early computing — Molly Holzschlag, Alan Emtage, Mary Ann Horton, Edith Windsor, and the Black women behind Katherine Johnson's NASA team as a response to the current erasure of that history.
→ Visit
Cricut Machine
My latest hobby has been Cricut. I bought one at a Black Friday sale a couple of years ago, but it just sat there for a long time. But for Mother's Day this year, I decided to make a mug for my wife with it, and I got hooked. My son needed t-shirts to present a shark tank project at school, so I bought the t-shirt press and made the shirts for his team. Then I discovered "Puff" heat transfer vinyl and made a "monorepos" shirt that I love. Then I bought the bigger Cricut Venture to cut vinyl wall decals for our new product, Polygraph, to put on the walls of the office. And when the Polygraph shirts we ordered didn't turn out great, I made shirts with puff vinyl just in time for our AI ❤️ Monorepos conference last week. I'm in San Francisco right now for the AI Engineer World's Fair, and I keep having ideas for things I could make for the conference with my Cricut, but I don't have it with me :(. I even considered buying a small one at Target, but three Cricut machines is a little excessive...right?
→ Visit
Elizabeth Jamison
System Design Interview: Design Ticketmaster w/ a Ex-Meta Staff Engineer
A good walk through of common system design interviews. There's also a Hello Interview website.
→ Visit