Nick Karnik | Blog
01Writing7 essays

Notes on AI, search, and building software.

Building software, search, AI, and engineering leadership. Plus side projects, cooking, cocktails, and whatever else I'm making.

No. 001How Autosuggest Ranking WorksYou typed three letters and got a hundred matches. How does search decide which ten to show first?Jul 19, 2026
Engineering16 min readNo. 002How to Tell If a Model Is Good EnoughLearn why accuracy is a trap, and how precision and recall reveal what really matters when evaluating machine learning models.May 10, 2026
Engineering7 min readNo. 003The Modern Attack Surface: How Computers Get CompromisedAn overview of how the attack surface has evolved in modern computing, and the ways computers and accounts get compromised today.Jan 26, 2026
Security17 min readNo. 004A Practical Way to Think About RAGA grounded mental model for Retrieval-Augmented Generation, with two concrete examples and the tradeoffs that actually matter.Dec 12, 2025
AI7 min readNo. 005How to Build for Speed: What It Actually Takes to Release FastEveryone wants to move fast, but not everyone knows how. Speed isn’t about heroics or skipping QA. It’s about trust in your systems, your telemetry, and your ability to roll back safely. Lessons from years of shipping at Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, Tableau, and startups on what it actually takes to release fast.Oct 23, 2025
Engineering7 min readNo. 006It's Not the Launch, It's the LandingIn technology we celebrate launches as if they were victories. The moment something goes live there is a demo, a blog post, a slide in a performance review. It feels like success. But a launch is not the finish line. It is only takeoff. The real test is whether the product lands.Oct 2, 2025
Product3 min readNo. 007How Engineers Can Use AI EffectivelyAI is everywhere in tech conversations. Some people hype it as magic while others dismiss it as overblown. The truth is simpler. AI is a tool. Like any tool in engineering, its value depends on how it is used. Used carelessly, it produces garbage. Used well, it creates leverage.Sep 27, 2025
AI3 min read