Writing · From a lead engineer
Engineering leadership
Decisions, trade-offs and team questions that come with leading engineers, including reviews of the books that shaped how I lead.
2026
- Tech debt snowballs, then it avalanchesLeadership5 min read
Technical debt rarely fails slowly. It grows quietly for months, then one day nothing can move until it's fixed. How to spot the snowball, why you don't get to choose the avalanche day, and what a lead can do before it arrives.
- Deep Work, read as a lead engineerLeadership · Review3 min read
Cal Newport's Deep Work argues that focus is getting rarer just as it becomes more valuable. Three ideas I'm taking from it, and the tension it doesn't resolve for anyone who leads a team.
- Being right is not the jobLeadership · Review2 min read
Cong Wang's essay on why he stopped arguing, a 2,500-year-old line from Lao Tzu, and what changes when you're the one who has to make technical decisions stick.