Marc Brooker Portfolio
Blog of a long-time AWS engineer who worked on EC2, EBS, Aurora, and Lambda, covering distributed systems and database internals with posts like "Snapshot Isolation vs Serializability" and a decade-spanning archive from 2012 to the present.
What makes it work
A breakdown of the choices that make this portfolio stand out.
Deep dives on precise technical distinctions
Posts like snapshot isolation versus serializability tackle a specific, often-confused distinction rather than a broad survey — the kind of narrow precision that signals real expertise to other systems engineers.
Retrospective posts that track a system's evolution over years
"Ten Years of AWS Lambda" and similar posts use the vantage point of having worked on a system since its early days, giving a perspective that no outside analysis could replicate.
A minimal personal site pointing entirely to the writing
The homepage explicitly states there's no content beyond the blog — an unusually honest, low-friction design that gets out of the way rather than padding a site with a generic bio and services page.
What Backend Developers can take from this
Specific, actionable tips to apply to your own portfolio — no generic advice.
Write about the exact distinction people get wrong (e.g., two similar-sounding technical terms) rather than a broad survey of a topic — precision reads as expertise.
If you've worked on a system for years, write a retrospective — insider longevity is a perspective few others can offer.
Don't pad a personal site with filler sections; a blog with real depth needs no more than a homepage and an archive link.
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