No bullshit.
Field reports from Abbeal teams. Quarterly updates.
- // 01
Learning
Learning Japanese: My Journey So Far · Part 2: Why I Stopped Relying on Motivation
Motivation comes and goes. After reading Atomic Habits, Alex Lim stopped waiting for it and built a system that fits Japanese into his daily life — long-term goal, environment tweaks, habit tracking, and negative emotions as fuel.
6 min
- // 02
AI Engineering
The Cheap Token Myth: Measuring the Real Cost of AI in Production
Why price per million tokens is a misleading metric, and how to actually evaluate the cost of running AI models.
9 min
- // 03
Leadership
How AI changed my job: it gave me back time for people
People often ask how, as a CEO, I find the time to talk to every candidate, every client, every member of my team. The truth is I don't find that time. AI gave it back to me. Here is what I automate, what I refuse to automate, and why the real change is a human one.
6 min
- // 04
Mobilité
Japan's work visa and JLPT N2: what actually changes (and why most engineers aren't affected)
Since April 15, 2026, the gijinkoku visa requires JLPT N2 in certain cases. We break down the real rule: two cumulative conditions, large companies exempt, English-speaking roles out of scope. For most engineers, nothing changes.
6 min
- // 05
Mobilité
Engineer in France in 2026: stay put, or look elsewhere?
France vs Québec vs Japan comparison for engineers. Funding down, offers melting, charges rising on one side; talent shortage and fast visas on the other.
7 min
- // 06
Automatisation
I automated my company with AI for six months. Unfiltered feedback.
42 skills, 60 scheduled tasks, real wins and tasty bugs. Honest feedback on six months of AI automation — and the real lesson nobody sells.
6 min
- // 07
IA
The bubble isn't where you think it is
Yes, there's an AI bubble. No, it's not on the technology, it's on valuations. Why a leader must invest in tech, not speculation.
4 min
- // 08
Business
Boss and Left-Wing: No, I Didn't Walk Into the Wrong Meeting
People often ask me how I can be a boss and left-wing. Spoiler: it's not a contradiction, it's one of the best business decisions I've made.
7 min
- // 09
IA
"The death of consulting": what Accenture's fall and Karpathy's map really say about AI and our jobs
Accenture loses half its value and cuts 11,000 jobs; Karpathy scores every U.S. occupation for AI exposure — and the best-paid are the most exposed. And a new role emerges: the Forward Deployed Engineer. Analysis and Abbeal's take.
7 min
- // 10
Infrastructure
Edge computing: when offloading computation to the edge becomes profitable
Latency, bandwidth, offline: edge computing promises a lot. But it also adds real operational complexity. Where do you draw the line?
9 min
- // 11
Architecture
MACH Architecture: The Integration Guide for CTOs.
Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, Headless. What MACH really changes, when to migrate from a monolith, integration pitfalls, and how we delivered it in luxury retail with an 18-month ROI.
11 min
- // 12
IA
Embeddings: What They Are and How to Use Them in an Enterprise RAG
Vectors, semantic similarity, model selection, chunking, multilingual pitfalls FR/JA. The practical guide to building retrieval that holds up in production.
10 min
- // 13
Data
dbt explained: the data build tool that transforms your SQL pipelines
dbt replaces home-grown transformation pipelines with versioned, tested, documented SQL. What it actually does, why it took over, how we've shipped it to production for our clients, and when not to use it.
11 min
- // 14
Engineering
DORA metrics 2026: the 4 indicators that actually measure your delivery.
Lead time, deployment frequency, MTTR, change failure rate. How to instrument them without bloat, avoid vanity metrics, and use them to drive a squad.
9 min
- // 15
AI
Fable: when AI becomes your remediation team.
Stéphane Robin (Senior Engineer Abbeal Montréal) breaks down Anthropic's Claude Fable 5: CVE patch generation in minutes, relentlessly proactive behavior, and the June 12 government reversal that cut off access to the model.
8 min
- // 16
Mobbeal
Working between Japan and France is great. Knowing how to truly rest is non-negotiable. My top 5 onsen and ryokan.
After almost two years between Tokyo and Paris, Sébastien Lonjon, CEO of Abbeal, shares his five favorite onsen and ryokan to escape the Tokyo rush and genuinely recharge.
6 min
- // 17
Business
Output-based vs Time & Material: why we (still) mostly sell time.
Fixed-price is fashionable, T&M gets mocked. At Abbeal, most of our engagements are still Time & Material, and we own it. The real question isn't the contract, it's how you run it.
9 min
- // 18
IA
How I automated a tech consulting CEO's day with Claude (and what you can learn from it).
30 workflows orchestrated on Notion + BoondManager + Google Workspace + LinkedIn + Apollo + Calendly + Tactiq, no new SaaS. 4 pillars: multichannel anti-duplicate sales, 48h recruitment, inbound SEO/LinkedIn/AI citations, founder productivity. Zero lost leads in 6 months, 15 min/day vs 3-4h before.
7 min
- // 19
AI
AI agents in production: 7 patterns French banks taught us.
Field notes from BNP, SocGen and a top-3 French insurer. What changes when your agent runs against COBOL cores, ACPR audit logs and a 4 ms p99 budget.
7 min
- // 20
Mobbeal
Working Holiday Tokyo: Kevyn, mechanical engineer at Amplitude Laser, 1 year in Japan.
26 years old, high-energy laser mechanical engineer. Left on Working Holiday then switched to work visa. The 7-8h gap becomes an asset: his Tokyo nights = France days, urgent topics unblock in continuity. Plus a Shinto anecdote on lunch break.
6 min
- // 21
IA
RAG in production: from €10,000 to €900 per month.
A European bank, a RAG pipeline, a hybrid strategy. How we cut inference costs by a factor of ten.
8 min
- // 22
Talent
How to build a senior engineering team across Asia, Europe and North America
The playbook for assembling a senior engineering team that operates across three continents — Asia, Europe and North America. The Abbeal three-hub model: Paris · Montréal · Tokyo.
7 min
- // 23
IA
7 patterns for AI agents in production (no demo theater).
Real-world patterns from RAG, agents and MLOps deployments. Senior teams shipping AI from POC to prod across Paris, Montréal, Tokyo.
9 min
- // 24
GreenOps
GreenOps: seven levers that cut 30% of your cloud bill.
Without sacrificing performance. Concrete cases: -30% on the bill, same SLOs.
6 min
- // 25
Tech radar
Tech Radar 2026 Q2: Rust, ROS 2, OpenTofu, Pinecone, Claude in Adopt.
Criteria, field reports, trade-offs. What we actually adopt vs what we assess.
12 min
- // 26
Learning
Learning Japanese: My Journey So Far · Part 1: Growth Mindset
Senior engineer Alexandre Lim shares his arrival in Tokyo in 2022, his 4-year self-taught Japanese journey (JLPT N3 in January 2025), and the Growth Mindset by Carol Dweck that kept him going. Part 1 of an honest series on learning a language while working full-time.
6 min
- // 27
Learning
Testing JavaScript by Kent C. Dodds: An Honest Review
Senior engineer Alexandre Lim reviews Kent C. Dodds' Testing JavaScript — the course that teaches how to test a JavaScript app using the Testing Trophy. From mental model to concrete patterns, from E2E to React Testing Library, with a real story of leading testing adoption at a fast-growth client.
5 min
- // 28
Robotique
ROS 2 in production: what a robot fleet taught us
Six lessons from the field on ROS 2 in production: autonomous navigation, vision, real-time constraints on a fleet of industrial robots. A field report from the Tokyo hub.
4 min
- // 29
Business
Choosing an engineering partner for a tech project in Japan
Three models for getting a product built in Japan, six questions to ask before signing, the red flags. The decision guide for choosing an engineering partner in Tokyo.
5 min
- // 30
Business
Montréal: the hub linking Europe and North America
Montréal is not a representative office: it's the North American link that completes Follow-the-Sun. Time-zone bridge, bilingual teams, Law 25 compliance.
4 min
- // 31
Learning
Kwik Reading by Jim Kwik: An Honest Review
Senior engineer Alexandre Lim reviews Jim Kwik's Kwik Reading — the 21-day course that turned reading into a faster, sharper, and more lasting habit. An honest, practical take.
4 min
- // 32
AI
When AI redefines cybersecurity: how Mythos changed our production priorities.
Stéphane Robin (Senior Engineer Abbeal Montréal) explains how Anthropic Claude Mythos Preview shifted CVE risk evaluation at a financial-services client. Backlog re-prioritised in 2 weeks, technical debt reclassified, 2026 lessons.
7 min
- // 33
Frontend
CSS for JavaScript Developers: Honest Feedback After 4+ Years in Production
Josh Comeau's CSS for JS Developers course reviewed by senior engineer Alexandre Lim, with 8+ years of experience and 4+ years applying knowledge from the course in production for clients. An honest, practical take.
5 min
- // 34
Mobbeal
Learning Japanese in Tokyo after JLPT N2: my daily routine.
No magic bullet to learn a language. Anki, WaniKani and Bunpro: the three tools I use daily to keep progressing in Japanese from Tokyo, on top of the private lessons Abbeal offers me.
5 min
- // 35
Mobbeal
VIE Tokyo: Hugo, fullstack developer, left after 3 years at Toyota France.
26 years old, on VIE at Abbeal Tokyo since October 2025 on an IBM HCL Commerce (Java + JSP) e-commerce mission. How his Toyota Motor Manufacturing France experience shaped his Japan call, and how his French team's flexibility makes the time zone gap manageable.
5 min
- // 36
Mobbeal
3 years in Tokyo: Alex, Senior Software Engineer, how he lives his 7-8h time gap.
8 years of dev, 3 years in Japan. Alex works on French hours (2pm-midnight Tokyo), with negotiated flex after 6 months. How he convinced his client ("6 months to see"), and why it's been running for 3 years.
6 min
- // 37
Mobbeal
Where to live in Tokyo? My top 5 (subjective, no apologies), by Sébastien Lonjon.
After more than a year in Tokyo, Abbeal's CEO shares his 5 favourite neighbourhoods: Kōenji (punk), Shimokitazawa (slow indie), Kichijōji (park + postcard), Daikanyama (discreet chic) and his #1 Jiyūgaoka — where he lives with his family (nature, international schools, Shibuya access).
6 min
- // 38
Mobbeal
My top ramen in Tokyo: 4 spots that put me back in my place.
Abbeal's CEO shares his current top: Hujishiro (classic, no frills), Menya Kokoro (signature mazemen), Afuri (delicate yuzu shio), Tamotsu (deep broth, seasonal duck). Plus a #1 kept for direct contacts.
4 min
- // 39
Mobbeal
VIE Tokyo: Grégorie, fullstack dev at OneID, the best of both worlds.
22 years old, after 3 years of work-study at OneID. VIE negotiated with a doc detailing benefits — hybrid FR/JP hours: morning Tokyo (France team sleeps), evening Tokyo (common slot), night Tokyo (France handover). Vue.js + DevOps + React Native, Docker locally. And the danger of living 2 minutes from a Pokémon Center.
5 min
- // 40
Engineering
Follow-the-Sun: 24/7 without burning teams out.
Three time zones, three teams, a roadmap that moves while you sleep. How we actually operate it.
7 min
- // 41
Legacy
Legacy Modernization: three AI agents doing the work of thirty devs.
Archaeologist, Architect, Cleaner. Our multi-agent method to migrate 20 years of COBOL in six months.
9 min
- // 42
Legacy
COBOL is not dead. The developers are.
4M lines, 14 months: how a Japanese bank modernized COBOL with multi-agent AI (Archeologist, Architect, Cleaner). Senior pod, Tokyo + Paris.
5 min
- // 43
Cloud
Digital sovereignty: SecNumCloud vs APPI, how we navigate.
French obsession with sovereignty vs Japanese pragmatism. Hybrid architectures that pass both audits.
9 min
- // 44
Talent
Hiring the top 1% in tech: Abbeal's 48-hour process.
Engineer-led sourcing, short technical validation, closing in 48 hours. How we avoid CV-puzzles.
6 min
- // 45
Mobbeal
Mobbeal Playbook: keep your job, change your life.
52 mobilities operated between Paris, Montréal, Tokyo. The model we refined, the pitfalls, the wins. And who we're looking for.
10 min