My Process
Discover
I don't write a single line until I understand the problem. Not "requirements-document" understand. Actually understand. What's the user doing at 11pm that makes this app necessary?
- Talking to real users, not just stakeholders
- Figuring out what to NOT build
- Asking "why?" more than feels comfortable
Architect
I sketch the system on paper before touching code. The shape of the data model determines everything downstream. Get this wrong and you're refactoring forever. I've been there. Twice.
- Data model first, API second, UI third
- Boring stack choices over trendy ones
- README written before the first commit
Build
Small commits, descriptive names, and no commented-out code that "might be useful later." I write tests because I've been burned too many times. PR descriptions are a love language.
- Small commits with actual descriptions
- Tests before the bug report beats me to it
-
No
anytypes in TypeScript. ever.
Deploy
Shipping is the easy part. The hard part is it not breaking at 3am on a Sunday. I set up monitoring before launch, not after the first incident. Learned that lesson so you don't have to.
- Dockerized from day one, not day forty
- Alerts that fire before users complain
- Rollback plan exists before deploy runs