AI Agents are just like human contractors only faster; to make them work at scale and in a stable manner, you need to use deterministic, executable checks like tests, compilers, linters, etc - otherwise you're doing no better than prayer.

There’s a particular kind of joy in seeing seeds you planted years ago take root. Watching an engineering organization grow over the course of several years, and seeing ideas we introduced become part of its everyday rhythm, have been some of the most gratifying parts of my work. This is the story of how a small engagement with HoneyBook evolved into a multi-year partnership that shaped everything from testing to architecture to culture. What began as a simple mission of tech

In the final post of this series, we’ll cover how applications where both the frontend and the backend are built with Javascript can...

Acceptance Testing multiple NestJS Microservices by running them a single process communicating via a memory fake.

How to make sure that memory-based fakes really behave like the production implementations they replace

Writing memory-based black-box acceptance tests for NestJS apps, testing features rather than implementation details

In software, we design for failure. The same is true for organizations. Embrace replaceability to build a self-healing company.

Many software engineers swear by the DRY principle, or "Don't Repeat Yourself." This concept encourages the extraction of duplicate code...

In the fast-paced world of software development, change is the only constant. User needs evolve, new technologies emerge, and market...

K8s solves a problem that your new startup probably doesn't face. Invest your resources in finding product-market fit and scale up later.

Working on bad code makes you better at writing good code

PMs make overly detailed plans without dev feedback, resulting in waste. Shorten cycle time by planning briefly then develop and iterate.

Unit tests couple us to implementation detail, restrict refactoring and don't assert that features work. Prefer bigger-scoped tests.

Upfront design often results in over-engineering and a mismatch between design and reality; embrace Emergent Design to be truly flexible

Microservices incur significant overheads in costs of change, runtime and complexity. Start with a monolith and break it down when needed.

Estimates cost a lot and deliver little. To progress effectively, Focus on Trust, Information Flow, Mentorship and Cooperation.

How Scrumfall creates a culture of Waste, Fear, Irrationality and Loss and how Holistic Software Development keeps us flexible and adaptable

How the word "Agile" lost its meaning, and how to remain flexible and cultivate a culture of sustainable, holistic software development.

How I wrote tests for a VS Code extension that relies on a React.js WebView as its UI, using Playwright, Mocha and some HTTP hacking

Fakes are complete implementations of an API used to replace IO-bound adapters with memory-bound doubles to facilitate Acceptance Testing