How a System Replaces a Hero
For three years the company's billing ran on one engineer who knew every edge case. The day she gave notice, the company learned what it had failed to build.
Angle
Engineering
9 posts
The bug backlog nobody decides on
Reported in February, deprioritized in April, still open in November. The bug had outlasted three roadmap cycles.
The billing system only a former contractor understands
Production revenue ran on a service nobody could fix. The contractor who built it had quit three years earlier and replied to email when he felt like it.
Don't Ship an Integration You Can't Assign
Engineering built it. Sales sold it. Product never tracked it. When it broke in production, the question 'who owns this' produced four hours of silence.
The internal tool nobody used
Six months of engineering. Three demos to leadership. Logged into twice in production. The tool was a project nobody had asked for.
Same Three Problems, Every Six Weeks
Thirty-one action items over six retros. Four done. The retro was a ritual that mistook complaint for improvement.
Eight engineers, fifteen minutes, zero re-plans
A standup that never changes anyone's plan has stopped coordinating and started reporting to the manager. Kill the format; ask one question instead.
The rockstar who wouldn't write a doc
He shipped twice as much as anyone. He documented none of it. Two years in, the company couldn't onboard anyone without his calendar.
Friday Deploys and the Absent Operator
Shipped at 4:47pm. Worked in staging. Discovered the edge case at 6am Monday, when ten thousand customers found it first.