Kris Drouet
A build vs buy framework is a short, repeatable test for deciding whether to build a capability in-house or rent it from a vendor. Mine runs on five numbers. If your team cannot put those numbers on the table, you are not ready to make the call yet. A few years back I sat in … Read more
Engineering career progression runs through three stages, Builder, Leader, and Advisor, and your authority compounds across them instead of replacing them. You earn the right to lead by building first, and the right to advise by staying close enough to the build that nobody can sell you a story you can’t check. A senior engineer … Read more
The best engineering leaders stay technical. The myth that good leaders eventually outgrow the code is one of the most expensive ideas in tech, and here is why.
Engineering leadership in regulated industries differs from generic SaaS far more in stakes than in stack. The languages are the same. The cloud is the same. What changes is what a wrong decision costs you. In fintech, mortgage technology, and healthcare, a bad release does not get quietly rolled back before lunch. It becomes an … Read more
Engineering operational discipline is the unglamorous, repeatable practice of writing down priorities, holding a steady operating rhythm, and naming who owns each decision, so good engineers can ship without waiting for permission. It is not bureaucracy. Bureaucracy adds steps to protect the process. Discipline removes ambiguity to protect the speed. Leaders confuse the two constantly, … Read more
AI build vs buy comes down to one question: is this capability your real competitive edge, or is it plumbing? Build the edge. Buy the plumbing. Teams that get that backwards watch the pilot die in the demo, which is exactly where most of them die. Last year I watched a fraud-detection pilot get a … Read more
Promoting your best IC to engineering manager without a real transition plan is how you ruin two careers at once. The move only works when you treat it as a career change, with a written plan, real training, a named coach, and a documented way back. I ruined the first engineer I ever promoted. Call … Read more
Engineering velocity stalls because of clarity, not capacity. The Clarity Stack is a three-layer diagnostic that explains almost every stuck team I have walked into: no shared definition of done, priorities living in hallway conversations, and architecture decisions that never get written down. Twenty-five years in this field, almost all of it inside regulated industries … Read more
