Notes from the build.
Engineering deep dives, architecture decisions and what we learned shipping operations-heavy software.
Engineering20 Aug 2026 · 3 min read
We Deleted the WHERE Clause
Row level tenancy asks every developer to remember a filter, forever. Schema per tenant removes the thing they would have forgotten.
Time Zones Will Find You
Your scheduled report skips one Sunday in March and runs twice in October. A short guide to storing instants, naming zones, and testing the dates that break time handling.
Onboarding Is a Saga, Not a Form
Provisioning a customer touches five systems and can fail in the middle of any of them. Treating it as a durable transaction is the difference between a stalled signup and a support ticket.
The Hidden Cost of Microservices for Small Teams
A six person team does not have the coordination problem microservices solve, but it pays every cost. Why we usually recommend a modular monolith, and when splitting does make sense.
Reading Postgres EXPLAIN Without Fear
Query plans look hostile until you know a handful of terms. A practical guide to reading EXPLAIN output, spotting bad estimates and fixing slow queries without guessing.
Why We Write the Runbook Before the Code
Writing the page an exhausted engineer will need at night, before building the feature, exposes missing alerts, unsafe reruns and absent kill switches while they are still cheap to fix.
What a Good Audit Log Actually Records
A finance lead asks who approved a payment, and the log says only that something was updated. Here is what an audit trail needs to record so it answers real questions under pressure.
Why System > Person is the Only Way to Scale
Key-man risk is the silent killer of growing enterprises. Here is how we engineer systems that institutionalize knowledge and ensure zero operational disruption.
Migrations That Can Run Twice
A migration that dies halfway should be a rerun, not a lost weekend. How to write schema changes that are safe to repeat, resume and test.
Idempotency Keys Are a Product Feature
A frozen screen and a second tap should never mean a double charge. Why idempotency keys belong in your product design, your documentation and your support tooling, not just your headers.
Retries Without Regret: Backoff, Jitter and Budgets
Retries feel free until they turn a small fault into an outage. How to use backoff, jitter and retry budgets so your service helps a struggling dependency instead of burying it.
The Case for Boring Databases
New databases arrive with better stories, but most teams should start with PostgreSQL. A case for boring technology, and the signs that it is time to move on.
Feature Flags Are Debt With Interest
Feature flags make shipping safer, then quietly pile up as dead code. Treat each one as a loan with an owner and a repayment date.
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