I have been lucky over my career to work at multiple startups, seeing them grow from an early concept and then subsequently led engineering orgs at some of the largest services in the world (AWS DynamoDB, Lambda, CashApp).
(signed poster from some of the folks when I left Livemocha)
While it’s tempting to adopt practices, every organization’s stage and culture is different. Things that work in one place may not work at another for a variety of reasons. However the core principle of ‘why something works or does not’ is often useful so you can decide how/if to apply in your situation.
5 Whys? When we typically have a system issue, many engineering teams typically do an exercise later to look at the situation, ask why and identify roots and potential actions. My goal is to share some of the practices, war stories and narratives from the different companies and experiences - from my basement startup to AWS.. And dive into the key principles and frameworks.