[Evan-Purkhiser]

Appreciate the feedback! I was having a hard time finding anyone with design experience in my social circle, so I mostly relied on asking Claude if something was or wasn't conventional. I did try to keep my ground pour free of bottle-necks.

[skew-aberration]

I've seen even pros make all kinds of mistakes, since PCB layout isn't really a focus of EE education. It's interesting that you've done so well with Claude. The usual temptation of beginners is to treat layout as a spatial puzzle to minimize area, but that's like minimizing LOC by reusing one letter global variables. The goal should be to maximize the quality of the important signals. If you need to make it smaller, you just add more layers.

The basic rule is that current flows in a loop, which means on both sides of the board. Every time there is a gap in the ground plane, current has to take a different path on the top and bottom sides. The further apart these paths are, the more like an antenna/transformer winding they act - picking up and emitting high frequency noise.

The simplest strategy is to keep all traces on the top mostly horizontal. Whenever a trace needs to cross the others, you add some vias and route it vertically on the opposite side.