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3 tips to staying sane while shipping code at lightspeed
Thoughts from my recent dev experience
I haven’t written much of my usual articles here lately. No dev logs, no diaries, not even quick thoughts, as I have been super busy at work. The past few weeks have been an absolute rollercoaster. February and March were probably the busiest months of my career. In terms of output, they topped the charts: highest story points, commits, lines of code, and features shipped. Wild to think about in hindsight.
Sprints like this give you nonlinear exposure to engineering. You’re moving fast, building fast, learning fast. I leaned heavily on GenAI during this time. Over 70% of all code I shipped had some level of AI involvement. That’s a number I wouldn’t have believed a year ago.
But when you’re in rapid-delivery mode, there are a few things you realize (often in retrospect) that can make or break a sprint. Here are some of the lessons I took away.
1. Specs and Requirements: Get Them Right, Upfront
Fast-moving teams often lack thorough documentation. Requirements evolve on the fly. Context shifts daily. In such environments, taking a pause to align specs is underrated. It’s tempting to just jump in and build, but ambiguity compounds over time.
