Current: CTO @ GensureTech
Ali Gündoğdu
I build products, grow and lead teams, and still write code now and then. Here I share ideas from inside the work, the things I try, and whatever stays on my mind along the way.
Featured writing
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leadership 6 min · June 11, 2026
What Does a Founding Engineer Actually Do? The 'Founding' Is Misleading
Founding engineer is one of the most sought-after technical roles of 2025. But most people get it wrong: they are not a founder, and the job is not mostly writing code. Backed by industry data, here is what the role really involves.
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leadership 17 min · June 6, 2026
Should a CTO Write Code? Stop Asking the Wrong Question
Should a CTO write code or not? The question itself is wrong. How the role changes with the company's stage, when to touch the keyboard, and when to stay away.
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engineering 7 min · June 5, 2026
Is PHP Dead?
Taking the old "Is PHP dead?" question and walking it through PHP's history and its technical turns, this piece argues that it is still a living, growing language.
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engineering 6 min · January 11, 2026
Data Integrity in Distributed Systems and the Debezium Call
Trying to keep several databases consistent, I hit polling, spaghetti code, and the dual write curse. The fix was to stop asking the database 'what changed' and listen to its log instead: CDC and Debezium.
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engineering 6 min · January 11, 2026
Mattermost's 10,000 Message Limit and How I Moved to Matrix
One morning Mattermost put our team's memory behind a 10,000 message wall. I weighed the options honestly, moved to the Matrix protocol, and wrote my own tool for the migration.
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leadership 12 min · November 20, 2025
The Prototype Illusion and the Vasa Syndrome
Why a working prototype is not a product: the vitamin versus painkiller test, design over-engineering, and when to hold or cross the line on demands.
Selected work
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A weekend experiment that became a real SEO tool. Crawls, audits, and surfaces what matters.
GoSEO
From the frame & the road
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