Phil

About

I'm Phil. 30 years in software. Started as a developer, moved into project management, quality assurance (CMMI, if you know you know), then all the dev tools and methods that software publishers were adopting at the time — Agile, XP, pair programming, the whole thing.

At some point I stopped building things and started managing people who built things. It pays better. It's also soul-crushing in a very specific way that I won't get into here.

Then ChatGPT dropped in late 2022 and something clicked. I opened my editor for the first time in years. Started with small internal tools for my affiliate sites, some WP plugins — nothing serious, just scratching an itch. But the feeling came back immediately. The actual pleasure of building something and watching it work. And the realization that I was spending less time co-coding a feature with AI than writing specs for a Fiverr dev.

Except it's not like it was 30 years ago. Now it's a tandem. Me and the AI, pair programming in a way that XP people would find either inspiring or deeply offensive (probably both). The difference is that instead of spending two hours fighting a syntax error that makes my eye twitch, I spend that time thinking about what I actually want to build. The specs. The logic. The "why does this feature even exist." That's the part I like. Always was.

Since then I've shipped two SaaS apps, taken on client work, and logged 400+ Claude Code sessions a month. The success rate is left as an exercise for the reader.

Rentier Digital is where I document all of this. And I want to be honest about why: I do it for myself first. Writing forces me to understand what I actually did, what didn't work, and why I'll probably make the same mistake again in six months. You're getting the byproduct. I think it's useful. But I'm not going to pretend it's pure altruism.

I'm curious by nature and I've been sharing what I find long before anyone was reading it. That part hasn't changed.

Glad you're here.

What I do

The Prompt Contract method

I developed Prompt Contract — a method to structure AI prompts like development contracts. Instead of hoping the AI understands what you mean, you write it down properly: stack, constraints, architecture, validation criteria. Turns out that's just... good specs. Who knew.

Get in touch

Find me on GitHub.