Be an Engineer

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Be an engineer.

06/10/2026

Remember collecting Pokémon as a kid?

Someone put it in the training budget.

Here's how it happens. One engineer understands the database. Everyone else understands that engineer's phone number. Training should fix that, so the company starts counting certificates per quarter.

The certificates arrive. 64 of them. The email signatures have never looked better.

The same engineer still gets every database call. Now with sixteen colleagues certified to watch.

Counting certificates is easy. Counting people who can actually fix the thing is the number that matters.

So I wrote the anthem.

The full article is on my website. Link in my profile.

Be an engineer.

04/10/2026

I offered the kids five cents for every piece of mess they picked up.

A reasonable deal. Clean house, small budget, valuable life lesson.

They learned the lesson.

The mess came back. They picked it up. Five cents a piece.

Then it came back bigger.

The kids didn't break the rule. They read it.

I wanted a clean house. The contract said five cents per piece.

Every office runs a version of this.

Pay per deployment, and you get forty-seven deployments a day to a test environment no customer will ever see.

Pay for test coverage, and you get tests that run the code and check nothing.

Pay per certificate, and you get sixteen certificates. The same person still fixes the database at 3 a.m.

Economists call it the cobra effect.

When evidence of success pays better than success, you get evidence.

Full article: The Cobra Effect. Link in my profile.

Be an engineer.

01/10/2026

Six weeks in a row in shorts and flip-flops.

In the Netherlands. After the summer holidays.

That's my personal record since I moved here. I wasn't expecting to still be doing this on October first.

But it's twenty degrees outside.

I appreciate the calendar's opinion, but I'm the one who has to wear the jacket.

It's the same at work.

You can plan a system that handles a thousand users. If it falls over at a hundred, you have a system that falls over at a hundred.

That's where the engineering starts. You find out why and work from there. You don't keep adding users because the presentation said they would fit.

A plan is useful. Pretending it came true isn't.

My jacket is ready.
I'll wear it when the weather gives me a reason.

Be an engineer.

29/09/2026

There’s always something in the morning.

Getting the kids to school. Walking the dog. Catching the bus. Finding out the bus has other plans.

And somewhere in the middle of it all:
“Right. I’ve got standup.”

One last bite of toast.
Laptop open.
Still catching your breath.

“Hi everyone.”

Be an engineer.

27/09/2026

I’m not rich enough to buy cheap things.

That is my official explanation for how seriously I take buying tools. The unofficial explanation is that I like good tools and would prefer no further questions about the receipt.

I choose the best I can justify for the work. Something I can trust to be ready when I am. I already have enough things requiring supervision.

A cheap tool can be surprisingly demanding. It needs a workaround, a replacement part, a restart, and eventually a small section of your personality devoted to knowing which angle makes it work.

You save some money at the checkout and spend the rest of your time being its unpaid support department.

Multiply that by every bargain on your desk. Now you have a collection to maintain and considerably less time to do the job you bought it for.

I’d rather own fewer things and trust them more. Give me one proper tool that earns its place every day.

A higher price needs a good reason. Saving me from regularly having to deal with the bloody thing is a very good reason.

That’s the quality I care about. I can make plans assuming it will work. I can give my attention to something else.

The price matters. So does how often the thing interrupts your life after you’ve paid it.

And yes, when something good finally arrives, there will be a completely reasonable ceremony.

The full article is on my website. Link in my profile.

Be an engineer.

24/09/2026

You still haven't subscribed to my newsletter?
Fine. I made you a certificate.

The Dream Certificate™ officially approves you for Dream Compensation™.
The salary of your dreams.
Paid nightly, while you're unconscious.
Currency: feels.
Valid until: first promotion.

Be an Engineer is a free weekly newsletter about software engineering, meetings, estimates, metrics and the corporate theatre required to produce them.
One terrible engineering command every Sunday.
Four minutes.
Unfortunately correct.

Subscribe and the certificate is yours.

Price: free.
Regular price: also free.

Operators are standing by.
There are no operators.
It's one engineer and an email field.

The address is in the video.

By order of thebeanengineer.com — get certified. Be an engineer.

22/09/2026

I take my direct report outside every day.

He gets full autonomy. Two meters of it.

No standups. No retros. No roadmap.

Delivery has never been more stable.

He does not estimate. He does not promise Q3. He finds a spot and ships.

Then he walks away.

I pick up the bag.

At work, the bag tends to stay on the pavement while everybody checks whose name is on the ticket.

We are very enthusiastic about giving people ownership. Until something goes wrong and ownership starts meaning "please explain this to the client while I have another meeting."

The engineer should own their work. They shouldn't also inherit every decision I made before handing it over.

If I promised Friday, removed the review and changed the requirements on Thursday, I am involved in this delivery.

Even if my name isn't on the ticket.

They can fix the bug. I can explain the promise.

Then we can change the conditions that helped create the mess. Otherwise, we have simply booked the same incident for next month.

My dog and I have a simpler arrangement.

He ships it very well.

I own the consequence.

By order of thebeanengineer.com — pick up the bag. Be an engineer.

20/09/2026

A micromanager's nightmare.

Four of us, same melody, everyone in a different part of it. I know all four parts. I have one mouth.

So I sang mine and left them to it. That is the only reason it worked.

17/09/2026

Everyone knows exactly what I do all day.

Four confident answers. No overlap.

Which one is closest to what happens in your house?

15/09/2026

People used to tell stories about sat nav sending them into rivers.

I thought we'd fixed that. Genuinely. That was a problem from another decade, like dial-up or waiting for a photo to load.

Here's how it went.

I was walking somewhere I'd never been, in a part of the city I don't know. I did what everyone does now — put the address in and stopped thinking about it.

Ten metres straight, then left.

And I wasn't checking. That's not laziness, that's the entire product. The reason you use it is so you don't have to keep track. If you're still keeping track, what are you paying for?

It also never hedges. It doesn't say "probably" or "I think". It says turn left, in the tone of something that knows.

So I went straight. And then I turned left.

September 2026, by the way.

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