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Things I've learned engineering at startups:
Complexity is a permanent part of the world. Technology claiming to eliminate complexity is actually shifting it elsewhere.
The best design is the one that allows for better design later.
Easy way to tell if technical debt is a problem: as the codebase progresses, is it getting easier or harder to build new features?
There are 10 person teams that output as much as 100 person teams - no hyperbole. The type of team you build is decided on day one.
Doubling your own efficiency is less useful (and less probable) than improving everyone else's by 20%
Brittle data models represent how the product works. Robust data models represent how reality works.
Problem solving is done by individuals, not groups.
Don't think of your runway as how much time you have left but how many iterations you have left. Lowering your iteration cost will multiply your runway.
A senior engineer's job is to reduce how much junior engineers have to know to be useful.
To solve a problem, keep defining constraints until there is only one solution.
If you cannot come up with a scenario where your test can save the day, it is a useless one.
Experienced distributed systems engineers will never recommend a distributed system.
A bug is a strong indicator that you have unclear code. If it was clear, you would have caught the bug before it went out.
And finally, take every opportunity to solve problems outside of your technological responsibilities - you'll be surprised how the engineering mindset can be successfully applied to anything
