Scaling Fast Book
74 articles · all categories
41 articles from 2024 · show all
December 2024
Looking for beta readers
Wanna read my hardest engineering lessons learned? You're in luck!
Atoms, molecules, organisms
Here it is: 20+ years of programming experience distilled into 378 words. From the book I'm writing.
Smart core, thin interfaces
Here's an approach to writing code that I've been using for years and couldn't quite put into words until now. One of those _"This feels wrong but I can't explain why"_. Now I can!
Empirical evidence for code modularity
Few of your engineering decisions matter long-term. Software is soft. You can change your mind. But how you structure your components is here to stay.
November 2024
Finding modules in a big ball of mud
Pulling modules out of a big ball of mud is like grabbing a slice of cheesy pizza. It's kinda separate but also not really.
Why you need observability more than tests
Here's a short and sweet story about a Friday deploy. I love Friday deploys.
The swarm doc
Here's a doc I like to use to structure the pre-work design chat that makes later code review a breeze.
Big Ball of Mud – the world's most popular software architecture
Forget Gang of Four, here are the 7 architectural patterns real programmers use:
Why software only moves forward
At scale there are no rollbacks and no cut-overs. Your software only moves forward.
October 2024
"Yes caviar is great, here's a ham sandwich"
Why do some projects ship and others seem to drag on forever? You need 3 people to get this right.
Make mistakes easy to fix
You can't prevent bugs. You'll burn out. Instead focus on making them quick to fix.
September 2024
The Laws of Software Evolution
Manny Lehman was one of the first to notice that software is never done. It just continues to evolve forever.
The Series A inflection point
The Series A inflection point is the most fun time in a startup, if you ask me. Here's what it looks like
You can side-step a yak, they don't all need to be shaved
When yaks aren't procrastination, they might be tunnel vision. You're so focused on the right solution, you miss the good enough solution
Better is good
A small improvement that lands is better than a large improvement stuck in review
How big up-front design fails
A long design phase without shipping kills many software projects. Here's a story from production I haven't shared before.
Why software projects fail
5 common themes
August 2024
Let small fires burn
You can't fix everything. Focus on the next big thing and let the small fires burn.
July 2024
90% of performance is data access patterns
Removing a single line of code slashed database CPU usage by 66% 🤘
DRY – the common source of bad abstractions
Swizec reveals the hidden pitfalls of overusing the DRY principle in coding, leading to bad abstractions. Discover how to write adaptable, efficient code that avoids these common traps.
Scaling Fast, my talk on lessons from tech startups
This talk from C3Fest summarizes the key lessons I've learned in the past ~15 years of working in tech startups. It's a high level overview of a new book I'm writing (60% done).
You can't side-quest a product
Here's a trap that talented engineers fall into all the time. It creates frustration, burnout, and the genre of tweets that read like "Why don't people care about the amazing work I'm doing".
June 2024
The dangers of spurious automation and how to automate anything
Discover the potential pitfalls of spurious automation and learn a foolproof three-step process to automate any task effectively. Don't miss out on understanding when automation is truly beneficial and when it can become a hindrance.
It’s okay to just do the work
Not everything needs to work forever. Start by solving the problem
Notes for my Scaling Fast talk next week
Decided to publish my notes because they look pretty useful on their own. Although I hope my stage presence adds a little something something. Enjoy :)
How to use feature flags
All the hard lessons learned using feature flags in production. Skips the why and gets to the how.
May 2024
Validate your assumptions early
here's war story from last summer. I've talked about it in workshops but haven't written it down before. It's for a book I'm working on.
A better roadmap solves many issues
Many engineering challenges start with your roadmap
Get us over the water, not build us a bridge
effective engineering teams should work *with* their product owner/manager, not *for* them
April 2024
Coordinating at the end is too late
When working: sync first *then* async