Ship fast without breaking things

Every team slows down as it grows. More people, more code, more meetings, less shipping. It doesn't have to be that way.

These essays dig into velocity, teamwork, and taming complexity — the engineering side and the people side. They're the thinking behind Scaling Fast, my book on software engineering through hypergrowth.

Essays on shipping fast

5 articles from April 2025 · show all

Say no to abstract code

The trick, then, is to keep related code close together to reduce context boundaries and to limit the amount of relevant detail so it fits in your working memory.

re: The Industrialization of IT

I guess if AI is what it takes to finally get people to care about architecture and team structure then mission accomplished?

What to work on next?

Younger engineers keep asking how I prioritize in a chaotic environment. Here's my approach.

Always deploy at peak traffic

A hard-won lesson for ya: Always deploy when you've got lots of traffic.

The difference between a product and a project

A project is something you do, a product is something you own.