Shape Up will help you break free of “best practices” that aren’t really working, think deeper about the right problems, and start shipping meaningful projects your team can celebrate.
Your engineering team looks healthy. It probably isn't
When everyone ships and nobody decides
Build the thing you wish to see in the world
For most of my career, I've been confusing building products with building businesses—and that confusion kept me from pursuing a lot of ideas. Two weeks off helped me realize that not everything needs to be a startup, and some of the best things we build are the ones we build just because we want them to exist.
The Flotilla Letters: Catching Up
I’ve been chugging away on the Crowbar Handbook which you can read as I write each section (recent sections include How to Ditch Your Stuff, What to Do About Work, and Eat Well for Less).
The Shape of Things to Come, Part 1: The Continuous Thunderdome — Steve Yegge
Part 1: The Continuous Thunderdome. Loops and graphs, Wheelhouse and Beads, the end of human code review, the Land Rush that replaces CI/CD, and the Wish Factory — a field report from 12 months in the future.
Paging Charity? How do I get my leaders to stop running teams Into the ground? - Stack Overflow
I'm a senior staff engineer, and I’m wondering what advice you might have for a person in my role in a large company to affect priorities and the speed at which work is "expected" to be executed.
The Shape of Things to Come, Part 2: Model Welfare for Agentic Engineers — Steve Yegge
Part 2 of The Shape of Things to Come. Model welfare as an engineering discipline: seats and sessions, laurels, handoffs instead of /exit, and how to build a city worth waking up in.
Let’s build a fleet and change the world
Abandon Big Ship, get on a Little Ship
Quality Wednesdays: How we trained our team to see what doesn’t work - Linear
In early 2023 at an offsite in Tenerife, our European engineering team did a series of exercises that ended up changing the way we work.
Review: Team Topologies
Many organizations are struggling with their business agility transformation. One of the reasons is the way they have organized their teams. The focus was probably on efficiency and if these teams …
The "Yips" in Baseball: Psychological Causes and Cures - Baseball Scouter
Demystifying the baseball yips: learn what they are, why they happen, and a practical four-week plan with mental skills and graded drills to restore smooth, confident throws under pressure.
Ship working code while you sleep with the Ralph Wiggum technique
Your Fit. Your Way. | A Mobile App That Makes Motivation Easier | Yes.Fit
The Global Leader in Virtual Races and Fitness Challenges. Interactive, motivating, and fun. Earn medals and other rewards. Get started for free.
The Paradox of Perfection: When ‘Good Enough’ is Actually Better
Exploring the tension between engineering perfectionism and pragmatic delivery. Discover why striving for the perfect solution often prevents us from shipping valuable improvements and how to find the balance.
Understanding Forward Deployed Engineering
Palantir is en vogue right now. So of course, folks are cargo-culting elements of its culture, especially “Forward Deployed Engineering”. Lots of companies are trying to imitate this, and some other founders have even reached out to me for advice on whether they, too, should do this model for their startup.
Adopt and scale Team Topologies: platform-as-a-product, templates, more. — Team Topologies - Organizing for fast flow of value
Accelerate value with Team Topologies: measure cognitive load, define team boundaries, apply inverse Conway, readiness assessments, and more for fast delivery.
