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I'm Cesar Aguirre. I'm a software engineer, lifelong learner, [language enthusiast]({% post_url 2020-10-23-ThreeLanguageLessons %}), and avid reader.

What I do

I’m an independent software engineer based in Colombia (not Columbia) with more than 10 years of experience (I stopped counting!). I [work remotely]({% post_url 2020-08-08-LessonsOnRemoteWork %}) as a backend engineer and technical writer. I specialize in building APIs and backend code with .NET technologies. Mainly C#, ASP.NET Core, and SQL Server these days.

I help teams grow high-quality backend code. And by high-quality, I mean maintainable and performant.

What I've done

I've worked in public services, electronic invoicing, and reservation management as a full-time employee and independent contractor.

In electronic invoicing, I updated a platform to comply with the latest regulations from the Colombian government, so existing users continued to work with the least amount of breaking changes. Among other things,

  • I changed the document creation component to follow the latest standard for XML business documents.
  • I created a library to parse PDFs and plain-text files into XML files to feed a documents API.

What I write about

I write about learning and programming. I share what I've learned in my journey as a software engineer. Often, I consider my blog as [my own time capsule]({% post_url 2020-07-20-TimeCapsule %}).

In this blog, you'll find tools I use, issues I've solved, lessons I've learned the hard way, and success and failure stories.

If you're interested, this is the story of [how I started blogging]({% post_url 2020-07-18-HowIStartedBlogging %}) and what I've learned after [five years of blogging]({% post_url 2023-07-18-FiveYearsOfBlogging %}).

Fun facts

I’m a cat owner, [vim user]({% post_url 2020-09-14-LearnVimForFunAndProfit %}), [plain-text lover]({% post_url 2020-08-29-HowITakeNotes %}), and [Zettelkasten practitioner]({% post_url 2020-11-18-HowToTakeSmartNotes %}).

In my free time, I like to read books (on paper) and learn foreign languages. Currenlty, I'm learning Brazilian Portuguese. (Oi, gente! Tudo bem?)

Start here

If you don’t know where to start reading, here are some of my most popular posts:

Career

  • [9 Subjects I've Changed My Mind About as a Software Engineer]({% post_url 2025-03-19-ChangedMyMind %})
  • [10 Ways to Stand Out at Work—Other than Work Hard]({% post_url 2025-02-26-StandOutAtWork %})
  • [10 Life-Changing Lessons I Learned the Hard Way—from the Worst Moment of My Career]({% post_url 2025-06-12-WorstMoments %})

Coding

  • [5 Lessons from My Team's Architect That Helped Me Become a Senior Developer]({% post_url 2025-10-25-LessonsFromMentor %})
  • [12 Hard Truths About Coding I Learned the Hard Way After 10 Years]({% post_url 2025-04-17-HarshTruths %})
  • [Three Tips to Read Code More Effectively]({% post_url 2025-03-26-ReadCode %})

AI

  • [What Coders Could Offer Instead of Writing Lines of Code If AI Takes Over]({% post_url 2025-12-21-Offerings %})
  • [A Quick Recovery Guide for AI-Dependent Coders]({% post_url 2025-06-28-AIRecovery %})
  • [The Numbers That Deflate the AI Hype About Replacing Coders—and Ease FOMO]({% post_url 2026-02-06-AIStats %})

Books

  • [Six Proven Principles to Learn Any Skill Faster (Without Spending 10,000 Hours)]({% post_url 2025-05-27-SkipTheLine %})
  • [Don't Write the Next Atomic Habits. Write Mini-Books]({% post_url 2025-10-07-MiniBooks %})
  • [8 Reading Habits I Learned from Ryan Holiday, the Stoic Book Master]({% post_url 2025-09-08-StoicBookReading %})

Self growth

  • [7 Surprisingly Simple Ideas That Changed My Life (And Could Change Yours Too)]({% post_url 2025-07-03-LifeChangingIdeas %})
  • [Two Years Ago, I Was Sick and Burned Out. But This Powerful Quote Changed It All]({% post_url 2025-05-13-PrioritizeHealth %})

Productivity

  • [I've Replaced My Second Brain With a Simpler Method]({% post_url 2025-06-22-SimplerNoteTaking %})
  • [5 Lessons I Learned from a World-Class Peak Performance Expert]({% post_url 2025-06-18-PeakPerformance %})

{% include 7day_email_course_longer.html %}

Thanks for reading!