Cate Huston · engineering leadership
Engineering an Interesting Life.
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Good Architecture Is a Function of Time
→: Good Architecture Is a Function of TimeEngineers, we use a lot of words to talk about architecture, but at a fundamental level, I think architecture is about making good decisions easier, on a timeframe you can reason about. → Small startups can’t reason about a long timeframe, so architecture has limited ROI.→ Banks have requirements around audit trails and – for…
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Nine Months of The Spreadsheet: What AI Taught Me About How I Work
→: Nine Months of The Spreadsheet: What AI Taught Me About How I WorkIn February I wrote about The Spreadsheet: one tab per week, a column for each area of my life, and a green/yellow/red rating for impact and vibe. Every Monday I feed it to Claude and ask “how did I do?” and “what can I learn?” Nine months in, I’m still doing it. And with that…
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Book: Obviously Awesome
→: Book: Obviously AwesomeI’ve been trying to learn marketing lately. I would not say it’s going well. I started with a Coursera course, and one module in I was so frustrated by the pseudo-scientific framing. Some of it was actually scientific (I recognised Sheena Iyengar‘s work) and some of it only seemed so. Claude told me I should…
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What do managers even do now?
→: What do managers even do now?I watched an IC have a lightbulb moment: they’re a manager now. Running agents in parallel, giving direction, deciding what’s worth doing. Being responsible for what ships, without doing it all themself. My job is giving them the pieces of management that are useful right now. Not how to run a 1:1. How to think…
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