Sparkles Brightly
@sparkles-brightly.bsky.social
Howdy! I'm Sparkles! ✨
I am the unfiltered alter-ego of an anonymous engineering leader. My eyes sparkle brightly - like AI - so you'll pay attention to me when I tell you that you're doing it all wrong!
Sagittarius - she/he/they
I am the unfiltered alter-ego of an anonymous engineering leader. My eyes sparkle brightly - like AI - so you'll pay attention to me when I tell you that you're doing it all wrong!
Sagittarius - she/he/they
That’s when they finally let Red out of prison in the Shawshank Redemption — when he just didn’t care what the parole board did anymore.
November 23, 2025 at 1:41 AM
That’s when they finally let Red out of prison in the Shawshank Redemption — when he just didn’t care what the parole board did anymore.
My org supports approximately 600 monthly contributors. I've seen a DX report that says organizations of our size put as many as 20% of their engineers on platform engineering efforts in order to keep the other 80% moving as efficiently as possible.
November 22, 2025 at 10:30 PM
My org supports approximately 600 monthly contributors. I've seen a DX report that says organizations of our size put as many as 20% of their engineers on platform engineering efforts in order to keep the other 80% moving as efficiently as possible.
We're about 40 people in a wing of the software engineering org. We do not own infrastructure. (Maybe we should.) That's a wing of the SRE org. It's about 20 folks that support multiple software engineering orgs.
November 22, 2025 at 10:28 PM
We're about 40 people in a wing of the software engineering org. We do not own infrastructure. (Maybe we should.) That's a wing of the SRE org. It's about 20 folks that support multiple software engineering orgs.
My team includes dedicated front/backend teams for vulnerability management and upgrades, a build/deploy team, a design system library team, teams that own shared backend frameworks, and a team that teaches sustainable software development practices through inviting volunteers to refactor with us.
November 22, 2025 at 9:46 PM
My team includes dedicated front/backend teams for vulnerability management and upgrades, a build/deploy team, a design system library team, teams that own shared backend frameworks, and a team that teaches sustainable software development practices through inviting volunteers to refactor with us.
I'm making it sound terrible. It's not. It's the reality of living in a 20 year old monolith, where every new pattern was tried and every passing fad made its way into the code.
Lots of technical debt. More being added by the day, faster than it can be cleaned up.
Lots of technical debt. More being added by the day, faster than it can be cleaned up.
November 22, 2025 at 9:21 PM
I'm making it sound terrible. It's not. It's the reality of living in a 20 year old monolith, where every new pattern was tried and every passing fad made its way into the code.
Lots of technical debt. More being added by the day, faster than it can be cleaned up.
Lots of technical debt. More being added by the day, faster than it can be cleaned up.
We have evidence that changing the way we write code leads to fewer bugs. We have evidence that adding unit test coverage substantially speeds up development. We have anecdotes about developers leaving because of flaky builds and long runtimes.
November 22, 2025 at 9:19 PM
We have evidence that changing the way we write code leads to fewer bugs. We have evidence that adding unit test coverage substantially speeds up development. We have anecdotes about developers leaving because of flaky builds and long runtimes.
Looking for a means to argue for more platform to support more features.
November 22, 2025 at 6:20 PM
Looking for a means to argue for more platform to support more features.
Finding that there always more projects than people.
Finding that the fires prevent us from doing the work to prevent them.
Finding that the organization is investing heavily in features without increasing platform support. And, now the features teams are complaining about the builds being slow.
Finding that the fires prevent us from doing the work to prevent them.
Finding that the organization is investing heavily in features without increasing platform support. And, now the features teams are complaining about the builds being slow.
November 22, 2025 at 6:19 PM
Finding that there always more projects than people.
Finding that the fires prevent us from doing the work to prevent them.
Finding that the organization is investing heavily in features without increasing platform support. And, now the features teams are complaining about the builds being slow.
Finding that the fires prevent us from doing the work to prevent them.
Finding that the organization is investing heavily in features without increasing platform support. And, now the features teams are complaining about the builds being slow.
B2B SaaS.
We have all of that.
I’m maybe just talking tools.
Things like a design system component library, builds, framework upgrades. Developer productivity.
We have all of that.
I’m maybe just talking tools.
Things like a design system component library, builds, framework upgrades. Developer productivity.
November 22, 2025 at 5:39 AM
B2B SaaS.
We have all of that.
I’m maybe just talking tools.
Things like a design system component library, builds, framework upgrades. Developer productivity.
We have all of that.
I’m maybe just talking tools.
Things like a design system component library, builds, framework upgrades. Developer productivity.
Basically, internal facing vs paying-customer facing engineers.
November 22, 2025 at 4:03 AM
Basically, internal facing vs paying-customer facing engineers.
Understanding your customers is a crucial skill no matter where you sit in the org.
Let’s call them Platform and Feature engineers.
Let’s call them Platform and Feature engineers.
November 22, 2025 at 3:59 AM
Understanding your customers is a crucial skill no matter where you sit in the org.
Let’s call them Platform and Feature engineers.
Let’s call them Platform and Feature engineers.
Directors: same thing with Principal Engineers.
VPs: same thing with Distinguished Engineers.
VPs: same thing with Distinguished Engineers.
November 20, 2025 at 2:08 AM
Directors: same thing with Principal Engineers.
VPs: same thing with Distinguished Engineers.
VPs: same thing with Distinguished Engineers.