About

Where do I start? I’m Khaled Garbaya, born and raised in a small town in the south of Tunisia. Tunisia, a beautiful country in North Africa, is known for its rich history, diverse culture, and stunning landscapes. Ironically, it wasn’t until I secured a job that I gained a deeper understanding of my country, as I could now afford to travel extensively. Don’t get me wrong, my parents did their best to show me around, but we would only travel to places where we had relatives, leading to a repetitive experience. It was the only option we could afford, and I appreciate every moment.

Let’s move on from that topic. I completed my schooling in my hometown before attending a university located 20 km away in the same state. I did a bachelor degree in computer science. Meanwhile, my passion for programming was growing and growing every day since I discovered GBasic, a programming language on my Atari keyboard console with cartridge. I can’t recall the exact brand and model, but if you’re old enough, you’ll remember it. My first program was PRINT Khaled, and guess what? My name was printed. I then began researching loops and other related topics.

The second and probably the biggest motivator was getting introduced to Macromedia Flash, acquired by Adobe later. I was amazed by the possibilities and how it is almost guaranteed that it will work in every browser; back then, Javascript was mostly used to show an alert.

Anyway, after finishing university, I immediately got a job as a flash developer for an agency in the capital Tunis. As a student, I developed a portfolio that included several Flash websites for various businesses and non-profits in my hometown. After a few years, Flash’s popularity began to decline due to security issues arising from its use as a virtual machine (VM), with Steve Jobs’s open letter likely serving as the final straw. I am deeply grateful for the platform, as it not only covered my expenses for many years but also taught me invaluable Javascript concepts.

After transitioning to Javascript and later Nodejs, I moved to Berlin. I began working on full-stack development and contributed to open-source projects such as Yargs and Gatsby, a process I thoroughly enjoyed. I also experimented with videos, streaming, and writing. I still do this casually.

After spending over a decade coding, I moved to management not because “it’s the next natural thing” but more because I really love helping empower people and seeing them succeed. As a result, I transitioned to management, which was initially challenging because it required me to relearn everything about people I had learned as an IC.

Where I am now

I’m a Senior Engineering Manager at Staffbase in Berlin, leading two squads — Team Worms (Communities) and Team Birds (Tasks) — with 12 direct reports. I’m also the go-to person for AI across engineering: driving AI-first practices, an engineering competency framework, and a platform initiative that’s rebuilding our plugin infrastructure for the AI era.

I still write code every day. I think that matters.

Career arc

The independent year was the best investment I’ve made in my career. I stopped managing and started building again — AI products from scratch, with real constraints and no safety net. It clarified what I want to do next.

AI

I’m a daily practitioner of AI-assisted engineering. I use Claude Code for most of my coding work, run multi-agent systems, and think seriously about harness engineering — the discipline of designing the environment that makes agents reliable over time, not just impressive in a demo.

Most writing about AI engineering assumes a solo expert. My actual interest is the harder problem: what happens when a team at different skill levels runs agents against the same codebase at the same time? That’s what I’m working on and writing about.

Side projects

Building is how I think. I always have something running.

Management style

I’m a background operator. I find and create opportunities for my people without making it about me. I care most about giving engineers the space, context, and stretch assignments to grow into their potential. I remove blockers, set direction, then get out of the way.

When I step in, it’s hands-on: I prototype, I pair, I ship alongside the team.

Outside work

Family man first. Raising a child has become my new hobby, and I try hard to protect time with the people I love — work will never end, but that time will.

Arabic is my native language. I work in English and French, and I’m getting there with German.

I lift, play video games to reset, and take a good steak seriously.