#Teams & Process

Field notes on how real teams reshape their habits — for better and worse.

Core themes explored

Lightweight RFC formats (TE Proposals)The commit-to-executive compression chainFostering healthy engineering habitsContinuous process evolution

4 posts

Teams & Process

You cannot punish your way to a great culture

Every few months a leadership post makes the rounds insisting culture is what you tolerate. I keep landing on the opposite, from humility more than pride: the best teams I have watched ran on trust. On why punishment only buys you silence, the unglamorous work that actually grows a culture, and why it comes back to who you hired.

Matthew PurdonJul 4, 20269 min read

Teams & Process

What is a principal engineer?

Reaching Staff means specializing into one archetype. Reaching Principal means mastering the transition between all four. Why you cannot lead a platform (or an AI transition) from a single gear, and how we ran the engine on our largest multi-agent initiative.

Matthew PurdonJun 13, 202613 min read

AI-Assisted Engineering

Build the model a map

An agent will rediscover your whole database every session, and pay for it. The fix is not a better prompt; it is writing the map down. On indexes, stubs, skills, and the documentation your teammates never got.

Matthew PurdonJun 9, 202612 min read

Teams & Process

Summaries all the way down

An engineer writes the truth. Four summaries later, an exec reads a guess. Field notes on the compression chain, and the layered artifact I build instead.

Matthew PurdonApr 10, 202610 min read

You cannot punish your way to a great culture

What is a principal engineer?

Build the model a map

Summaries all the way down

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