Hi, I’m Vincenzo Ciaglia—former Principal Architect at Amazon Web Services for 13 years, and I’ve been writing code for about two decades now. I’ve always been a bit obsessed with how money and software overlap: spreadsheets that actually tell you something useful, scripts that help you think through risk, dashboards that cut through the noise.
Why this blog exists
After twenty years building systems, I wanted somewhere to write down the personal finance questions I keep circling back to:
- Can we take some of the debugging tricks we use for distributed systems and apply them to portfolio design? Like, what if your investments could “degrade gracefully” when markets turn messy?
- What happens when you back-test those popular FIRE playbooks with European data—real tax codes, actual ETF options, currency swings—instead of just copying U.S. scenarios?
- Which automation actually sticks around once you’re the one running it every month? Savings pipelines, rebalancing rules… they all sound great until a tired human (me) has to keep them alive.
FIREgeeks.net is where I publish what I find—including the stuff that didn’t work. Expect data, lessons learned the hard way, and an honest look at what’s been useful for me. This isn’t prescriptive advice.
What you’ll find here
- Personal finance through a builder’s lens. Deep dives into savings rates, withdrawal strategies, risk management—all the usual suspects, but from someone who thinks in systems.
- FinTech experiments. Small coding projects, API mashups, dashboards that make money decisions a bit more measurable.
- Tools I actually use. If a spreadsheet, script, or visualization earns a permanent spot in my workflow, I’ll write it up so you can adapt it.
How to follow along
- Check the home page for new posts.
- Try the FIRE calculator at firegeeks.net/firecalc.
- Send feedback, ideas, or “have you tested this?” questions to vinciaglia(at)gmail.com.
I’m not a financial advisor—just an engineer who can’t stop tinkering with the overlap between money and code. If something here gives you an idea, run it through your own situation, talk to a professional if you need to, and see if it holds up in the real world. Then let me know what you learned.