Customer Obsessed Engineering

Observability as architecture: why you can’t bolt it on later

Most teams treat observability like a nice-to-have. They’re building blind — and paying for it in ways they can’t even see.

12 hrs ago • Zac Beckman

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How waterfall is wrong for software

We've known for decades waterfall and software don't mix; why do we keep doing it?

Apr 8 • Zac Beckman

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January 2026

What happens when the next developer has to understand your AI code?

This study into the long-term cost of AI-driven development reveals some surprising findings. Most other studies only examine short-term outcomes. But…

Jan 30 • Zac Beckman

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3.6 Specification

Before coding we need to make sure our design has enough fidelity. Specification is about adding those details, the happy paths as well as the failure…

Jan 28

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How to fix a $25 bug before it becomes a $37,500 problem

Stop debugging and start designing by "shifting left" with BDD. It's not about testing. It's about feedback loops and thinking clearly about intent…

Jan 24 • Zac Beckman

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Transform your standups and retros: intention matters more than status updates

Do you try to skip your standup? Or feel like retros are a waste of time? Then your team isn’t doing it right. Here's my formula for giving your team…

Jan 14 • Zac Beckman

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Part 3: Refining our data pipeline architecture to solve a few hidden challenges

Ensuring scalability, reliability and responsiveness pose interesting problems in distributed architecture. Here’s how to build a forward-looking…

Jan 8 • Zac Beckman

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December 2025

3.5 Modeling

Engineering models eliminate mistakes & complexity, ensure better testing & reliability, and improve collaboration & understanding.

Dec 29, 2025 • Zac Beckman

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Part 2: Steel thread first: a practical data pipeline architecture

Learn how to build a sound data pipeline architecture, from the ground up, using an iterative approach that ships fast and scales.

Dec 22, 2025 • Zac Beckman

Happy holidays, good luck, don't work too hard

Burnout is a thing. Don't forget to recharge.

Dec 14, 2025 • Zac Beckman

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Data pipelines are really cool. But also, really hard to build.

Data pipelines pose challenges we should all master. They push the limits on design, architecture, performance and even predicting the future.

Dec 3, 2025 • Zac Beckman

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September 2025

Why only testing use cases just isn’t enough; here’s how to do it right

Traditional unit tests are setting you up for production failures. Here's a path to a better launch experience: use property-based testing to build…

Sep 22, 2025 • Zac Beckman

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