About

Hey, I'm Dustin Hart. I've spent most of my career as a staff engineer and engineering manager, split between "is this right?" and "are we doing the right thing?" Those are different problems, and I find the second one to be a lot more interesting.

This blog is for people who own the second problem: senior ICs and EMs. You probably won't see highly technical breakdowns of problems here. This isn't a blog about engineering so much as it's a blog about teamwork. As AI steals our technical jobs, I believe this widens the need for thinking and processes that factor in the humans. Judgment is more important than ever. That said, I'll probably share what I think is cool too.

What I write about

It could be anything, but mostly it will be about these four things. I'll change it up so this doesn't turn into a one-note blog.

• Staff engineering and management craft. Influence without authority, the team signals that show up before the metrics do, 1:1 patterns, and how to make decisions with incomplete information, etc.
• Team effectiveness and project delivery. Dealing with the blocker that nobody escalated, the dependency that was "almost done" for three weeks, cutting out the fluff, and what it costs when the person who knows isn't the person who decides.
• What I work on. What shipped, what I reverted, and the retros from my own product. This includes the embarrassing ones that make me look stupid. Those are usually the useful ones and also a true part of the job.
• Opinions on current events and practices. Technology is always changing and keeping up with what is going on around us is important to staying sharp. I'll share some things that I see and offer my 2 cents. Take it if you need it.

How I decide what's worth publishing

This is a loose filter, but generally I'll be asking:

1. Was there a decision or judgment that might be interesting?
2. Would a competent engineer learn something they'd actually use?
3. Does it say something about the problem, not just about the code itself?

What you won't find here: productivity-guru content, how I organize my calendar, or generic advice about the "best way" to do something. There's already enough of that.

What I'm building

I'm working on Destato. Teams log their project blockers from the tools they're already in (Slack, Claude, Jira) and tracks them until they're resolved. It came out of the same thing I keep writing about. So much of working with other people is friction: waiting, unclear ownership, decisions nobody made. I kept feeling like we spent more time on the admin than on the project itself. Destato is my answer.

Get in touch

I'm most active on LinkedIn, which is the best place to argue with me about any of this. Code lives on GitHub. If something here was useful, or if you think I'm wrong, I'd like to hear it.