20 posts
11 min read
After years of writing code that directly impacts revenue at massive scale, these are the hard-won lessons about what actually matters when your diff can move millions of dollars.
5 min read
The ability to explain technical decisions in terms that non-engineers care about is one of the most valuable skills a senior engineer can develop.
4 min read
Design reviews aren't just for designers. As an engineer who regularly participates in them, I've gained perspectives that make me better at building products.
4 min read
The engineer-PM relationship is one of the most important dynamics on any product team. Here's how I've learned to make it productive instead of adversarial.
4 min read
You can't fix what you can't see. Observability isn't just dashboards and alerts. It's a mindset that changes how you build, debug, and operate software.
4 min read
Shipping to 100% on day one is a gamble. Gradual rollouts turn a gamble into a calculated risk with early warning systems built in.
4 min read
Production incidents are inevitable. How you handle them defines your growth as an engineer. Here's what I learned from my first major one.
6 min read
How I approach building a feature from the initial request through design, implementation, testing, and production rollout.
5 min read
The transition from feature engineer to system owner is the biggest career leap most engineers make. Here's what changed for me and what I wish I'd known earlier.
4 min read
Senior engineering isn't about writing more code or knowing more frameworks. It's about making the people and systems around you more effective.
5 min read
Tech debt isn't inherently bad. It's a tool. The problem is when teams accumulate it unconsciously, without tracking it or paying it down strategically.
4 min read
Speed and quality aren't always at odds. But when they are, knowing which one to optimize for is one of the most important judgment calls an engineer can make.
5 min read
Five architecture mistakes I see repeatedly in Android codebases and the practical patterns I use to avoid them.
4 min read
Optimization without measurement is guessing. And in my experience, engineers guess wrong about what's slow more often than they guess right.
5 min read
Benchmarks measure what you tell them to measure. The performance problems that hurt users most are the ones that only appear in the real world, on real devices, with real usage patterns.
4 min read
Code review isn't about catching typos. It's about protecting the codebase from subtle problems that compound over time. Here's what I actually focus on.
4 min read
Joining a new team means inheriting a codebase you didn't build. Here's the system I use to get productive fast without pretending to understand things I don't.
5 min read
Most engineers design for the happy path first. I've learned to flip that around. Starting with how things break leads to better systems, fewer surprises, and code that holds up under real-world conditions.
6 min read
The most impactful thing I do as an engineer isn't writing code. It's asking the right questions before I start. Here's my checklist.
5 min read
I didn't start writing because I had all the answers. I started because writing forced me to figure out what I actually knew, and what I was just pretending to know.