Writing
Building in public.
Honest notes on using AI tooling to ship real products and income streams — plus the engineering decisions behind the builds.
Real Numbers: a newsletter for engineers building on the side
I launched Real Numbers — the newsletter that replaces my original one here. It documents my side income publicly: every stream, every two weeks, no omissions. First issue: July 1, 2026.
The Real AI Side Hustle Is Live on Amazon
My first book is live on Amazon — the honest result of testing the '$10k/month with AI' methods every YouTuber sells. What the process took, and what's next.
Why I cut my AI book from 17 chapters to 11 before I finished it
I planned an 80,000-word book, then cut it from 17 chapters to 11 before the draft was done. The build-in-public story of why shorter got better.
I gave myself 60 days to bootstrap side income with Claude Code
A senior engineer's honest 60-day log of using AI tooling to ship real products — what actually got built, what it earned, and what I'd do differently.
How I Built This Site with Claude Code
A build log of charlesmcquain.dev — why I chose Astro and Tailwind, how I drove the whole thing with Claude Code, and the architecture decisions (and one nasty CSS bug) along the way.
Real Numbers.
Honest tool reviews, AI workflows that actually ship, and the full income breakdown every two weeks — from a senior SWE still doing the day job. No omissions.
- Honest income numbers — the real kind, not cherry-picked screenshots.
- The exact AI workflows I use to ship products and content fast.
- Build-in-public lessons from a senior engineer — what works and what doesn't.
Biweekly. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.