Welcome to montero.cr

Hi — I'm Andrés, a software engineer from Costa Rica.

I built montero.cr because I wanted one place online that actually feels like mine. Not a feed. Not a tidy résumé. Not a wall of buzzwords that could describe a hundred other engineers. Just a corner of the internet where I can write about what I'm working on, what I'm thinking about, and what I get up to once the laptop is closed.

Most of my days are spent in Python, AWS, Terraform, and the unglamorous plumbing of cloud infrastructure — automation, configuration, the wiring that quietly holds systems together. The problems I enjoy most are the ones where a dozen moving parts all have to line up exactly right. Sometimes that comes together cleanly. More often it starts with a cryptic error, fifteen open browser tabs, and me muttering "okay, but why?" Those are usually the moments I learn the most from, so I'd like to write them down while they're still fresh — what I built, the calls I made, the things that took three times longer than they should have, and what I'd do differently with hindsight.

Some posts here will be hands-on and full of code. Others will be more about the reasoning behind a decision than the mechanics of it. I keep circling back to a handful of themes: AWS Lambda and serverless, infrastructure as code, Python, Terraform, system design, and — more and more — how AI actually fits into the day-to-day of building software.

I'm not precious about AI. It has already changed how I work: it'll help me find my way around an unfamiliar codebase, make sense of an error, sketch a first draft, write tests, or get a rough idea into a shape I can judge. What it won't do is hand you good judgment. Generated code still has to be read, questioned, tested, secured, and understood before it goes anywhere near production. The part I find genuinely interesting is learning how to lean on these tools without quietly handing over the responsibility that comes with shipping software.

But I don't want this site to be only terminals and pipelines and YAML.

I have a life that doesn't happen behind a screen, and I'd like that to show up here too.

I get a lot out of time with my family — a long conversation, a shared meal, a plan that's really just an excuse to be in the same room. Work expands to fill whatever space you give it, and tech will happily take every hour you've got, so those moments are how I remember what actually deserves my attention.

I'm also a firm believer in a quiet night in: something decent on Netflix, no agenda, nothing to fix. Not every evening has to be productive. Sometimes the best plan is no plan.

And when I need a real reset, I head outside.

Costa Rica is generous that way. A couple of hours from a screen full of logs and dashboards, you can be deep in a rainforest where the air feels different, the ground is uneven, everything is impossibly green, and the only notification is some animal you can hear but never quite see.

Trails have their own way of teaching patience. You don't get to skip ahead to the lookout at the top — you walk the whole thing, mud and rain and the steep stretches and the part where you start quietly wondering how much farther it is. Honestly, that's probably part of why I like it. It rhymes with engineering, just without the laptop.

This blog will change shape as I go, and I'm fine with that — no rigid formula, no content calendar I'm only pretending to keep. Some posts will be deep technical write-ups. Some will be a couple of paragraphs. Some will be about a place I hiked, a thing I watched, or an idea that stuck around.

For now, this is just the start.

I'm Andrés. I build software, I live in the cloud, I poke at new tools, I spend real time with the people I love, I watch more Netflix than I'll admit, and I count myself lucky to have Costa Rica's rainforests within reach.

Welcome to montero.cr.