Breaking Systems, One Mistake at a Time


I’ve broken more things than I’ve built — and that’s exactly why this blog exists.

Over the years, I’ve learned that the most valuable lessons rarely come from perfectly executed plans. They come from the quiet moments after things break — when you realize what you missed, what you assumed, or what you could have communicated better. Most of those insights seem obvious in hindsight.

This space, Obvious in Hindsight, is my running log of those realizations — from building reliable systems at scale to learning how people, teams, and code all fail (and recover) in similar ways.
I’m writing to understand — out loud.

Why I’m Doing This

Every engineer I respect shares one thing in common: they remember what they got wrong.
Not because they’re proud of the mistake, but because they learned something from it that documentation never could.
This blog is where I collect my own version of those reminders — along with some movie quotes.

Each post will tie back to one of my core tenets — ideas that keep resurfacing no matter how much experience I gain. I keep breaking them, refining them, and re-learning them.

The Tenets

  1. From Symptom to Solution — Accelerate with Understanding.
    Symptom -> Problem -> Solution -> Acceleration

  2. Meet People One Step Away from What They Know.
    Communication is engineering — a bridge.

  3. Ask: “Why are we doing this now?”
    This has 3 questions inside it.

  4. Make Assumptions Explicit.
    The things we don’t say out loud usually break first.

  5. Think 10×, Build 1× at a Time.
    Visions need small steps. Small steps lead to broad visions.

  6. Move Fast — the Door Swings Both Ways.
    Just do it when it’s reversible. Be deliberate when it’s not.

  7. Ambiguous in Foresight, Obvious in Hindsight.
    duh !.

  8. Tag People, Not Just Products.
    Success belongs to people, not roadmaps.

  9. Confidence Compounds — Beat Confirmation Bias.
    Build small proofs early; question certainty often.

  10. Placeholder.
    You know nothing Jon snow !

What to Expect

Each week, I’ll write about something I broke — a process, a system, or a pattern of thinking — and what I learned when the dust settled. Some stories will be technical, others will be just others.
All of them will circle back to one of these tenets.

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