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We’re curious people by nature. And we love to teach others what we’ve learned. So explore our blog to gain fresh insights from our expertise in areas ranging from culture to AI.

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Retro style graphic of a man standing in front of shelving like a store with IT 'products' as if he's is shopping for physical products
Practices | 2 min read

Why I Evaluate IT Services Like Products on a Shelf

One way I look at IT is through a product lens. Evaluating each product or service provided as something you’d choose to buy from the store. Sometimes you have options, sometimes there’s only one solution available. This mindset stems from my time as a Product Manager at a digital services company, where I focused on […]

Adam Sturm, Marketing Graphic Designer at SEP, sitting at his desk and smiling at the camera. It's a selfie!
Culture | 4 min read

A Day in the Life of a Graphic Designer at SEP

Morning: Getting Started One of the things I love most about SEP is the flexibility with my schedule. I have to drop my son off at school at 8:30 am, so I usually don’t arrive at the office until 8:50am. Being able to start a little later in the day is great for me, but […]

ai-generated image for an engineer using AI for development
Artificial Intelligence | 7 min read

A Manager’s Guide to AI Adoption in Software Engineering Teams: Just Keep Prompting

AI tools for coding aren’t a nice-to-have anymore — they’re table stakes. At SEP, we recognized that early and gave engineering teams the green light to start using them, provided the tools met our security standards and our clients’.  Once the green light was given, engineers across the organization were free to use AI in their work. The only stipulation: each […]

Ghostly laptop with code editor open
Artificial Intelligence | 5 min read

If You Can’t Wait 5 Years: Start Experimenting with AI for Robotics Today

In my last post, I discussed why the ChatGPT moment for robotics is likely still 5 years away. But if you can’t wait that long, this post has practical advice on how to start experimenting today. Be warned: the ecosystem is fragmented, the learning curve is steep, and (AI + hardware) == quirky. If you thought LLMs […]

Welcome Jason LaJeunesse
SEP News | 3 min read

SEP Appoints Jason LaJeunesse as Director of Data 

Westfield, IN — SEP is pleased to announce the creation of a new leadership role, Director of Data, and the appointment of Jason LaJeunesse to the position. This role was created to support client needs as organizations modernize their data platforms, prepare for AI adoption, and build durable, long-term data foundations.  “Data has gone from a step […]

SEP Employees standing in front of SEP headquarters, shot from above by drone.
Culture | 7 min read

Inside SEP’s ESOP: What Actually Changes When Employees Become Owners

Most people do not think much about company ownership until they start one themselves. You show up, do good work, collect a paycheck, and maybe get a 401(k) match if you are lucky. Ownership? That is for founders and executives. But what if it weren’t? In 2010, SEP’s founders made a decision that fundamentally changed […]

Robot on hike at a scenic lookout
Artificial Intelligence | 6 min read

Robot Foundation Models Are Not What I Was Expecting (I’m 5 Years Too Early)

When Physical Intelligence announced the π0 foundation model, I thought a ChatGPT moment in robotics was near. Here was a model that could control different kinds of robots to perform a variety of dexterous tasks. It could fold clothes, make coffee, assemble cardboard boxes, and more. I thought we’d get another post like swyx’s signaling robotics as an emerging capability of the […]

A picture of an in progress D&D game taken by Philip Mitchell
Artificial Intelligence | 8 min read

AI at the Table

I sit at a really weird saddle point currently. Professionally, I’m obliged to engage with generative AI technologies. I’m an AI technologist. I’ve been doing this for nearly twenty years at this point, and over ten past the doctorate. I can’t just ignore a new technology because I personally find it ethically dubious. Conversely, I’m […]

Artificial Intelligence | 11 min read

Planning-First AI Methodology: The Foundation of Successful AI Collaboration

Why starting with understanding, not code, is the key to unlocking AI’s full potential in software development Picture this: You’re 7 hours into your work day, you’re on your third cup of coffee, and the AI just generated 200 lines of code that compile perfectly… and do absolutely nothing you wanted. Sound familiar? If you’ve […]

Programming | 2 min read

So Long, “beforeEach”? New Testing Pattern in JavaScript

Tests in TypeScript or JavaScript often run setup code inside hooks like “beforeEach”: Developers must take care to get the setup correct, especially in large or nested test suites. Some test runners now provide fixtures-per-test. We can re-write our test suite as the following: This test setup addresses our original pain points, and adds a […]

Artificial Intelligence | 11 min read

The AI Coding Revolution: Why Your Development Team Needs to Invest Now or Risk Being Left Behind

 A developer’s perspective on mastering AI coding tools for competitive advantage The software development landscape has undergone more transformation in the past year than in the previous decade combined. As AI coding tools evolve from novelty to necessity, development teams face a critical decision: invest heavily in learning these tools now, or watch competitors pull […]

file folder organizer with colorful folders
Artificial Intelligence | 13 min read

From PDF Chaos to AI-Powered Organization: An Engineer’s Journey into Document Processing

How I built an intelligent document processing system using OCR (Optical Character Recognition), local LLMs, and Python – leveraging my code generation AI experience The Problem: Drowning in a Digital Morass Like many people, I had accumulated a large collection of PDF documents over the years—medical records, invoices, receipts, tax documents, insurance papers—they were scattered […]

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