Dustin Hart
Staff engineer and engineering manager. I write for senior ICs and EMs about teamwork, judgment, and the parts of the job that aren't technical.
This isn't really a blog about engineering; it's about teamwork. It's written mostly for senior ICs and engineering managers. As AI takes over more of the technical work, focus shifts to judgment, and judgment is a human problem: who owns what, who needs to know, and how a group of people decides anything at all.
Mostly I write about management and staff-eng craft: what makes teams effective, whatever I'm building at the time, or the occasional opinion on how we all work. It comes from something I built or watched happen: a decision, a call I got wrong, or a pattern I've seen enough times to name. It's worth posting if someone who wasn't in the room can still use it.
I'm building Destato because so much of working with other people is friction: waiting, unclear ownership, decisions nobody made. It lets a team log a blocker when it happens, from the tools they already use, and follow it until it's resolved. Faster delivery is the obvious win. The one I care more solving the common bottlenecks.
Recent writing
- Why is this even a secret?
I overengineered permissions for an async standup tool nobody asked for. Then I built the next one wide open, and it was easier to build and better to use.
- Stand-ups should take 15 minutes
Long stand-ups waste everyone's time. A three-line template for your update: what finished, what's active, and what you need help with.