About Me

Professional Background

I’m a Principal Software Engineering Manager at Microsoft, where I have the privilege of leading a team that builds innovative solutions that make a tangible difference. My journey in tech has always been driven by a deep-seated passion for solving complex problems, whether that’s untangling legacy code or architecting scalable cloud systems and creating tools that genuinely help people.

Management & Team Leadership

Beyond coding, I’m passionate about the people side of technology. Building great software requires building great teams, and I’ve learned valuable lessons about:

Growing engineers - Helping teams and team members develop their skills and advance their careers
Technical leadership - I’ve always enjoyed the technical side and it has been a good learning experience in balancing hands-on work with guiding others
Team dynamics - Creating environments where people do their best work
Decision making - Navigating trade-offs and making calls with the best information we have at the time

Vibecoding & AI

By night, I’m exploring the exciting frontier of AI-assisted development. This isn’t just about using AI tools; it’s about fundamentally rethinking how we approach software (and to a larger extent) content creation.

I believe we’re at an inflection point in software development. AI assistants are becoming powerful collaborators that can:

Accelerate routine coding tasks – from writing boilerplate and unit tests to refactoring legacy code, AI handles the repetitive work that used to eat up hours of your day
Help explore new technologies and frameworks – want to try that new React feature? AI assistants act as knowledgeable guides who can explain concepts, show you patterns, and help you get productive faster
Provide different perspectives on problem-solving – sometimes you need a fresh set of eyes on your architecture decisions or algorithm choices. AI can suggest alternatives you hadn’t considered
Enable rapid prototyping and experimentation – that idea you’ve been sitting on? You can now build a working proof-of-concept in an afternoon instead of a weekend, validating concepts before committing serious time. This is also bringing new meaning to iterate fast, fail fast types of methodologies. Someone seeing the implementation and iterating quickly getsyou to where you need to be, or quickly deciding its a dead end and all it cost was a couple of hours and a bunch of tokens.

This blog is partly a documentation of that journey - experimenting with AI tools, sharing what works, and exploring what’s possible.

Why This Blog?

I started kowitz.net as a place to:

Share knowledge - Document learnings from health data, FHIR, building complex software and services, and AI development
Connect with others - Engage with the developer community
Think out loud - Writing helps clarify thinking and solidify understanding
Build in public - Show the process, not just the results

Get in Touch

I’m always interested in connecting with fellow developers, healthcare technologists, and AI enthusiasts.

GitHub: brendankowitz
LinkedIn: brendankowitz

Feel free to reach out if you want to discuss FHIR, AI development, or just geek out about technology!

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