4 min read Free

Operating Structure for the AI Era #2: Smaller Teams, Broader Roles

Smaller teams become viable only when accountable owners can supervise broader systems, not absorb more tasks. Clear outcomes, reusable workflows, clean interfaces, decision rights, and quality bars convert AI leverage into wider ownership without creating overloaded versions of old roles.
5 min read Free

Operating Structure for the AI Era #1

AI shifts organizational design from narrow production roles to accountable owners supervising people, tools, agents, workflows, controls, and feedback loops. As execution gets cheaper, structure must elevate judgment, system design, quality control, prioritization, and clear responsibility.
Profile 9 min read Free

Lessons from Andrew Gils

Andrew Gils, a systems engineer and entrepreneur, bridges open-source telecom architecture with high-end digital audio hardware. His work studies how lean, purpose-built technology and community-driven development can simplify complex networking, while grounding bootstrapping in signal integrity.
2 min read Free

Shipping velocity series #10: The Shipping System Audit

A disciplined audit traces five recent features through their critical paths, identifies the queue or decision that actually constrained throughput, and clarifies decision rights so teams can target the highest-leverage bottleneck instead of reacting to the loudest frustration.
2 min read Free

Shipping velocity series #9: How AI Changes Shipping Velocity — and What It Doesn't Fix

AI lowers the cost of implementation and expands viable options, but it does not remove product, design, coordination, or judgment constraints. It relocates the bottleneck, often to human review, making constraint visibility essential to genuine speed.
2 min read Free

Shipping velocity series #8: Quality vs Speed Is Usually the Wrong Tradeoff

Speed and quality are not opposing ends of one tradeoff. Small batches, staged rollouts, observability, and quick rollback let teams learn sooner, contain failures, and ship safely while exposing the genuinely risky shortcuts that create delayed, expensive damage.
2 min read Free

Shipping velocity series #7: Platform Engineering Helps, But It Won't Save a Slow Product System

Platform engineering removes real mechanical drag from slow CI, flaky tests, poor observability, and painful deploys. Yet fast tooling cannot settle product direction, control scope, clarify decisions, or repair weak handoffs, so delivery speed still depends on the wider product system.
2 min read Free

Shipping velocity series #6: There Is Always a Constraint. Stop Optimizing Everything Else.

Every shipping system has a primary constraint, often hidden behind more visible pain. Finding the queue that governs throughput matters because improving CI, staffing, or process anywhere else consumes effort without making the whole system move faster.

Choose your reading rhythm.

Start with a weekly briefing, add daily notes, or hear only when a durable essay or library update is ready.
You've successfully subscribed to Antoine Buteau
Great! Next, complete checkout to get full access to all premium content.
Welcome back! You've successfully signed in.
Unable to sign you in. Please try again.
Success! Your account is fully activated, you now have access to all content.
Error! Stripe checkout failed.
Success! Your billing info is updated.
Error! Billing info update failed.
Press ESC to close.