writing in public: what i discovered during my 8-month writing break
Eight months ago, I stopped writing.
Not intentionally, it just happened. One week turned into a month, then several, and suddenly I found myself staring at a blog that hadn't been updated since late 2024.
In that time, I wrapped up three years at Capchase (it was time to move on), joined an AI startup as their first employee and founding engineer, and relocated from Madrid to Elche. Life moved fast while my blog stood still.
the myth of continuous output
I used to believe that writing in public meant constant production: ship posts, share insights, document everything. My 2024 goals reflected this mindset, but life had other plans. While my blog gathered dust, I was teaching 200+ people about AI and data science, continued building risk systems at a fintech scale-up called Capchase, and diving deep into edtech.
The break taught me something unexpected: sometimes you learn more when you stop trying to document everything.
what actually happened during the break
Without the pressure to turn every insight into a post, here's what I was actually doing:
exploring educational ai
I spent months as CTO of an educational AI project with a friend who runs a bootcamp. I built agents, prototyped with Vercel, created an AI tutor. I was simultaneously teaching AI to the bootcamp students and doing some data consulting. It was an intense learning experience, but by the end, I realized I needed to explore other directions. Sometimes growth means recognizing when it's time to try something new.
going deeper, not wider
Without chasing content ideas, I followed what genuinely interested me. This led me from fintech to exploring how AI can make hiring and onboarding more human.
making hard choices
By late 2024, Madrid's costs were crushing us (my family) on one salary. Moving to Elche wasn't just about geography, it was about creating space to build without financial stress constantly breathing down my neck.
lessons from the mess
I've been tracking yearly goals for over 10 years now, since my first bullet journal. The 2024 vs 2025 comparison shows how much changed.
2024: trying to do everything
- Started with 19 goals
- "Blog regularly" → managed 3 posts out of 20
- "Master Rust" → installed it, went through "The Book", but that's it
- "MIT MicroMasters in Finance" → useful at first for fintech work, then lost interest
- "Meditate daily" → 30% success (sitting still is hard)
- "Learn Swedish" → got through 24% of the Assimil book and some episodes of Coffee Break Swedish podcast, but struggled to find motivation after leaving Sweden
What actually stuck: started going to the gym regularly, visited my French host family in Toulouse after 10 years, traveled to new places (because travel has always been important to me).
2025: getting realistic
- Down to 13 goals
- First one is just "Explore Curiosity"
- No specific numbers for blog posts
- "Read more books" instead of drowning in articles
- Fitness became about feeling good, not measurements
The pattern is clear: I spent years trying to force myself into boxes that looked good on paper. Now I'm focusing on what actually fits my life - building things, occasional writing, staying healthy, and being present for my family in our new city.
the thread that connects it all
Looking back, the jump from educational AI to HR tech doesn't feel random anymore. Both are fundamentally about the same thing: helping people reach their potential.
In education, I tried to personalize how people learn. In HR, I'm personalizing how people find work. Both are about understanding where someone is, where they want to go, and using AI to make that journey easier. The bootcamp teaching, the mentoring at IE, the AI tutor project - they were all about making these transitions less painful.
Maybe that's why this new role clicked immediately. It wasn't a pivot, but the next chapter of the same story.
why return now?
I'm not returning to public writing because I suddenly have more time or because I've "figured it all out." I'm returning because I finally understand what writing in public means for me:
- It's thinking out loud, not performing expertise. I don't have thousands of readers, and that's fine. This is more journal than journalism.
- Irregular is better than forced. After burning out on my edtech venture, I know the cost of pushing too hard. I'd rather write three posts that matter than thirty that don't.
what's next
I'm writing from Elche now, finally able to support my family on one salary while building in the AI space. As the founding engineer at this HR startup, I'm creating AI agents that make recruiting more personalized and less stressful for candidate - removing the friction, the waiting, the uncertainty. The questions that interest me have evolved:
- How do we make career transitions less painful?
- What happens when AI handles the mundane parts of hiring?
- How do we build systems that amplify human judgment rather than replace it?
No content calendar. No growth hacks. Just sharing what genuinely interests me when it feels right to share it.
Sometimes the best way to return is to admit that you were never trying to be a "blogger"—you were just someone learning things and occasionally writing them down.
I'm Adilet, founding engineer at an HR AI startup, living in Elche, and still figuring things out. Previously explored educational AI (learned tons about what works and what doesn't), spent 3 years at Capchase in fintech, taught AI to 200+ people, and discovered that sustainable building beats hustle culture every time.
