Why I built this site (and what I'll write here)
A short note on the thinking behind michaeldubose.dev — and the kind of engineering-leadership writing to expect.
I’ve spent nearly two decades in this industry, and most of what I’ve learned didn’t come from a framework’s documentation. It came from the messy, human parts: deciding when to re-platform versus when to refactor, figuring out how to migrate every user onto a brand-new system without anyone noticing, and learning how to grow engineers into the kind of people who make those calls without me.
This is where I’ll write about that.
What to expect
A few themes I keep coming back to:
- Re-platforming with the lights on. How to replace the foundation of a live product — APIs, databases, frontends, pipelines — without losing the trust of the people using it.
- Staying technical as a leader. Why I think the best engineering managers keep their hands close to the architecture, and how to do that without becoming the bottleneck.
- Scaling teams, not just systems. What actually changes when you go from one team to five, and from writing the code to coaching the people who write it.
No fixed cadence, no filler. Just the things I wish someone had told me earlier.
If any of it is useful to you, reach out — I like comparing notes.