Why Headcount Math Lies
In 1911, Frederick Winslow Taylor published and helped cement one of management’s oldest instincts. In simple terms, break work into measurable units, optimize for efficiency, a...
#Operational Excellence
Writing on repeatability, disciplined execution, and improving how work actually runs.
Incentives Drive Everything
In early modern France, the monarchy kept running into the same problem. Wars were expensive, revenue was not steady, and every obvious solution came with a political price. New...
Scaling Culture Without Dilution
As organizations grow across geographies, one thing becomes disproportionately important. Culture. We, engineers, often dismiss culture as soft and cushy. This is until you see...
What Good Looks Like
A few companies back, my manager and I inherited a group of teams after layoffs. Confidence was already low. People didn't believe in the systems we maintained. Stakeholders los...
Why Airport Security Feels Random
I’m about to take yet another flight, this time flying to India. I’m excited, but then I can’t seem to pass the thought of why the heck security checks are so random. I had to c...
The Janus Protocol
In the Roman Forum, there was a small shrine with double doors. When Rome was at war, the doors were left open. When Rome was at peace, the doors were closed. It is an oddly mod...
What Good Execution Looks Like
The other day I was talking with one of my directs. We ended up discussing something we’ve both learned over the years. When execution works, the environment is quiet. Not slow....
Building Remote Teams
You've probably heard stories of big tech companies in US and hiring double that number in India, blaming AI for the shift. Everyone's first thought is likely cheap labor. While...
Engineering Manager Interview Preparation
Layoffs seem to be everywhere these days. You scroll through feeds, and it’s another round of cuts, another company restructuring. If you're a seasoned manager, losing your role...
Subteam Tenets
Over the years, working across multiple organizations, I developed the concept of subteam tenets. I’ve tweaked it along the way to fit each company's unique quirks, but I still...
Balancing Act of Reliability
Software development involves both creating and maintaining systems. Once you put anything into production, reliability becomes critical. When your systems are not reliable, you...
Operational Skills Needed
Over the years, I've interviewed many candidates. One crucial skill that often gets overlooked is operational reflexes during oncalls. Surprisingly, few companies test for this,...
Engineering Health Essentials
Engineering health is a term that deserves far more attention than it receives. Sustainable software development is not only about the features we ship or the speed at which we...
Update Statements on Production
Executing update statements on a production database is always a big challenge. It’s one of those tasks that looks deceptively simple until something breaks in ways you didn’t i...
Engineering Roles and Responsibilities
Engineering organizations have roles and responsibilities either explicitly or implicitly. When it’s explicit, one or more people exercise the engineering role, and the responsi...
Manager as a Service
What would a manager as a service look like? What kind of systems would a manager resemble? How can you describe a manager’s responsibility through various systems? Here’s my ta...
Service Overload Strategies
Service overload happens a lot. If you haven't seen one, count yourself lucky. The first time I watched it take a system down, I realized how serious it’s to get the basics righ...
Promoting Learnings in Incidents
Incidents are used for the negative consequences of an action. The incident comes from an action that fails to result in the expected outcome. For instance, deploying a code to...