Field notes on personalization.
Hyper-personalization, knowledge graphs, recommendation systems, and the engineering choices we made building ×marble. Written for marketing and growth engineers who want the technical version, not the marketing version.
- May 20, 2026·12 min read
The Marketing Engineer's Personalization Stack in 2026
What a marketing engineer's personalization stack actually looks like in 2026 — the data layer, decision layer, surface layer, and where to outsource vs build.
marketing-engineeringgrowth-engineeringpersonalizationstack - May 19, 2026·10 min read
The Path of a Recommendation: Why Explainability Matters Now
Every recommendation should come with a path. Why explainable personalization isn't optional in 2026 — and how knowledge graphs make it native.
explainable-airecommendationspersonalizationknowledge-graphs - May 18, 2026·13 min read
How to Add Personalization to Your App: 5 Patterns for 2026
Five concrete patterns for adding personalization to your app in 2026 — re-rank API, edge feature store, generative-on-the-fly, signal-driven, and the full layer.
personalizationengineeringimplementationpatterns - May 17, 2026·11 min read
Collaborative Filtering Is Aging. Knowledge Graphs Are the Next Layer.
Collaborative filtering powered recommendations for two decades. Here's why it's aging and what knowledge-graph-based personalization adds.
collaborative-filteringknowledge-graphsrecommendationspersonalization - May 16, 2026·12 min read
Recommendation Engine vs Personalization Layer: What's the Difference?
Recommendation engines rank items. Personalization layers decide everything. A clean taxonomy of the two, with implementation implications.
personalizationrecommendationstaxonomyarchitecture - May 15, 2026·13 min read
A Reference Architecture for Real-Time Personalization in 2026
A vendor-neutral reference architecture for real-time personalization in 2026 — signal to graph to score to surface — with latency budgets per layer.
real-time-personalizationarchitecturepersonalizationengineering - May 14, 2026·12 min read
The Cold-Start Problem: Why Day-Zero Personalization Matters
The cold-start problem in recommendation systems, why the standard mitigations fall short, and what 'day-zero personalization' looks like in 2026.
cold-startday-zero-personalizationrecommendationspersonalization - May 13, 2026·12 min read
Knowledge Graphs vs Vector Embeddings for Personalization
Knowledge graphs and vector embeddings handle personalization differently — query patterns, explainability, cold-start, ops cost. When to pick which.
knowledge-graphsvector-embeddingspersonalizationrecommendations - May 12, 2026·13 min read
Hyper-Personalization, Explained for Engineers
Hyper-personalization for engineers in 2026 — latency budgets, the data substrate, architecture patterns, and where it actually pays off.
hyper-personalizationpersonalizationarchitectureengineering