The best engineers I know aren't just great coders. They are great at reading the room. They know when to dig in and sprint, and when to step back and plan.

Adapt your style to the moment, and you turn the environment into your biggest ally.

Why this matters:
Wartime isn't "bad" and Peacetime isn't "good." They are just different contexts requiring different tools.

If you try to build perfect, academically correct architecture during Wartime, you will fail.
If you rush and break things during Peacetime, you will be reckless.

• Leadership: Collaborative, consensus-driven.
• Your Strategy: Use the time to refine processes, pay down tech debt, and build influence.

🕊️ Peacetime Mode
The core business is stable and growing.
• Focus: Long-term thinking and architectural improvements.
• Process: Followed strictly; quality matters more than raw speed. +

• Leadership: Direct, top-down, quick decisions.
• Your Strategy: Don't wait for perfection. Ship the essential, fix it later. Don't take tense discussions personally.

⚔️ Wartime Mode
There is an existential threat or a massive opportunity that requires speed.
• Focus: Immediate execution.
• Process: Often bypassed to ship faster. +

Ben Horowitz famously coined the distinction between "Peacetime CEO" and "Wartime CEO," but this applies to every engineer and manager too.

Most companies alternate between these modes. Startups do it constantly. Here is how to spot them and adapt: 👇

I use Notion to manage this workflow. It takes about 5 minutes to set up, but saves hours of confusion later in the week.

3. Daily checklist
List up to 5 tasks per day. Keep it simple so you don't get overwhelmed.

2. Time block your days
Dividing the day helps maintain focus. A common split looks like this:
• Morning: Deep work and strategic tasks.
• Afternoon: Meetings and collaborative work.
• Evening: Disconnect and relax.

1. Define 3 weekly priorities
Ask yourself: what is the most important thing to ship by EOW? Pick 3 big goals and commit to them.

Just because a new API or framework is available doesn't mean it's ready for your entire user base on day one.
Established tech is established for a reason. It's stable.
Don't let the shiny new framework break your core product. Reliability always wins.

In mobile engineering, adoption needs to be gradual.

We scrambled:
• Immediate revert of the change
• Expedited App Store review request
• Redirecting users to the web version as a temporary fix

The fix was fast, but the lesson stuck.