about
Hi, I'm Dhandapani.
Engineer, dad, and curious builder — testing whether AI can make me better at all three without making me passive.
I spent years being quietly adequate. Then AI arrived and I became a dad. This site is where I document the experiment in public.
Current experiment: becoming more intentional.
India → Netherlands · Senior SWE, Booking.com · ambitiousengineer.dev
Three pillars, one experiment.
Eight years, five companies, one acronym.
My career spells AAUBU — five companies that each made me a little more ambitious. The terminal knows the whole story; click it to decode.
The best chaos.
Two toddlers at home since 2022. They are the reason attention is the scarcest resource I manage — and the reason the Ambitious Dad experiments exist.
the best chaos · est. 2022
kids: 2¹ · diapers: 2¹⁰⁰ · love: 2^∞
From Tamil Nadu to the world.
India to the Netherlands, with stops worth remembering. Spin the globe — every dot is a story I'll probably write about eventually.
Curious what I'm focused on this month, or want to nudge what I write next?