I worked at a place where design was expected to take a free weeks for a new server project that would take say three months. From what I saw we produced softwa

I worked at a place where design was expected to take a free weeks for a new server project that would take say three months. From what I saw we produced software that was easy to maintain and easy to add new features too. But we rarely had to rip out and redo old features or old libraries. People were much more Likely to come up with the right layering of software to solve the problem, including the problem of high velocity changing produce specs. We also figured out the right place to put in some DSL templating engine or easy to edit configuration. Working there for years and watching the system scale over many orders of magnitude user traffic and feature growth left me with an appreciation for deep, clear thought, in the face of uncertainty.