Articles
Practical insights on architecture, team building, and technical leadership.
Stop Rewriting Your App
March 14, 2026
architecture technical-debt rewrites
Every founder hits the moment where the codebase feels irredeemable. The rewrite fantasy is seductive. But I've watched teams burn millions on rewrites that ...
Three Questions to Ask Before Your Next Engineering Hire
March 13, 2026
hiring team-building engineering-leadership
Most hiring mistakes happen before the interview even starts. Ask yourself these three questions first.
MVP Your Rewrite Before Rebuilding Your Stack
March 12, 2026
architecture rewrites pragmatism
Before you commit 6 months to a full rewrite, spend 2 weeks proving the new stack actually solves the problem.
Technical Debt Isn't a Bug, It's a Loan
March 11, 2026
technical-debt architecture engineering-leadership
Technical debt gets treated like a failure. Sometimes taking on debt is the smartest move. The problem is when you stop tracking what you owe.
Default Standards Every Database Table Should Follow
March 10, 2026
database architecture standards
Most database messes start with inconsistent basics. A few simple defaults prevent years of pain.
Honeypot Fields. The Simplest Way to Stop Form Spam.
March 8, 2026
security web-development pragmatism
CAPTCHAs annoy real users. Honeypot fields catch bots without anyone noticing. Sometimes the simplest solution wins.
Stop Building Internal Tools Nobody Asked For
March 7, 2026
engineering-leadership product pragmatism
Engineering teams love building internal tools. Most of the time they should be building product instead.
Why Every Production App Needs a Real Healthcheck Endpoint
March 6, 2026
devops architecture reliability
If your healthcheck just returns 200 OK, it's lying to you. A real healthcheck tests the things that actually break.
Complex Designs Are Easy. Simple Systems Are Hard.
March 4, 2026
architecture pragmatism technical-debt
Anyone can architect something complicated. Building something simple that actually works takes discipline most teams skip.
Your CI Pipeline Is Your Real Code Review
March 3, 2026
devops process engineering-leadership
Code reviews catch style issues. Your CI pipeline catches everything else. If it takes 45 minutes, nothing else matters.
Stop Debating Ideas. Run Small Pilots Instead.
March 2, 2026
decision-making architecture pragmatism
That architecture meeting could have been an experiment. Most debates end faster when you just try it and see what happens.
Shorter Sprints Create Faster Learning
February 28, 2026
agile process team-culture
Long sprints hide problems for weeks. Short ones surface them in days. Speed of learning beats speed of building.
The Best Architecture Decision Is the One You Can Reverse
February 27, 2026
architecture decision-making pragmatism
Most technical decisions aren't permanent. The teams that move fastest are the ones that optimize for reversibility over correctness.
Flawless Demos Build Trust Faster Than Roadmaps
February 26, 2026
communication engineering-leadership trust
Nobody trusts a slide deck. Everyone trusts working software. Demos are how engineering teams earn autonomy.
Goodhart's Law Is Quietly Breaking Your Engineering Metrics
February 24, 2026
metrics engineering-leadership process
When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. This one sentence explains most broken dashboards.
Feature Flags Let You Ship Without Fear
February 23, 2026
devops process pragmatism
Deploying code and releasing a feature are two different things. Feature flags are how you separate them.
Developers Should Shadow Customer Support
February 22, 2026
product team-culture customer-focus
Your roadmap says one thing. Your support inbox says something completely different. Guess which one your customers care about.
Velocity Is a Trap
February 20, 2026
metrics process agile
Velocity was supposed to help teams plan. Instead it became a performance metric that distorts everything it touches.
Good Enough Then Iterate
February 19, 2026
pragmatism process product
Perfect is the enemy of shipped. The fastest teams I've worked with get something real in front of users and improve from there.
Make It Work. Make It Pretty. Make It Fast.
February 18, 2026
process architecture pragmatism
Most teams get the order wrong. They polish before they prove. There's a better sequence.
Dev and Ops Shouldn't Be Separate Teams
February 16, 2026
devops team-structure process
When devs throw code over the wall to ops, everyone loses. The teams that ship fastest own the whole pipeline.
Scrum Is Not Agile
February 15, 2026
agile process engineering-leadership
Somewhere along the way, scrum became synonymous with agile. They're not the same thing. Not even close.
Cycle Time Is the Only Engineering Metric That Really Matters
February 14, 2026
metrics process engineering-leadership
Story points lie. Velocity can be gamed. Cycle time is the one number that actually tells you how your team is doing.