Joshua Essex

We recently released lifecycle reporting in DX, and I’ve loved seeing it help Platform teams build a concrete business case for funding important Platform and DevEx initiatives. While traditional metrics—like build times, pull request merge times, and issue cycle times—offer useful insights, they cover only a narrow slice of developer workflows. They also often fail to distinguish between non-blocking delays (where developers can switch context and stay productive) and true friction points that drain valuable engineering time. Lifecycle reporting helps pinpoint where in the development process teams are experiencing the most friction and delays—and ultimately costing organizations the most. Just like in the screenshot below, I’m seeing companies lose thousands of engineering hours each year to challenges understanding existing code, lengthy CI processes, dev environment issues, and excessive meeting schedules.

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Today I am excited to announce Digger’s BIGGEST update ever Project OpenTaco - The Open Standard for Terraform automation. With OpenTofu, where Digger is a founding member, the community already has a credible open-source CLI alternative to BSL-licensed Terraform. But as we all kno that only solves half the problem. The CLI helps teams avoid lock-in, but it doesn’t address governance or collaboration challenges at scale. Project OpenTaco builds on this foundation, without taking an opinion on which IaC language is used, giving teams a path to adopt more Infrastructure-as-Code with a TACOs that is open, self-hostable, and free from licensing traps or per-resource pricing. We believe that it this is “Terraform’s backstage moment”. Backstage became the open standard for Internal Developer Portals, we believe Project OpenTaco will do the same for IaC automation, setting the standard, driving adoption, and making closed platforms unnecessary. The future of IaC is open, and we’re building it brick by brick. Check out our roadmap and sign up for updates, we’d love any and all feedback! Link in the first comment ->

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Big update gone wrong. Recently, we launched one of Astravue’s biggest upgrades ever New architecture + latest frontend version. The goal is to improve speed, stability, and scalability. We tested heavily. We delayed the release to be safe. We thought we covered everything. But two critical issues still slipped through. What happened next mattered more than the bug itself: 1. We owned the problem immediately. 2. Communicated openly with customers. 3. Treated it as the highest priority. 4. Rolled out a fix within a day. Lesson learned: No amount of preparation guarantees perfection. But quick response, transparency, and accountability can turn a setback into a trust-building moment. Perfection is impossible. Trust is earned in how you handle the imperfect moments. #Leadership #CustomerTrust #SaaS #StartupLessons #ProductManagement #Astravue

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Guillermo Rauch, CEO of Vercel, told me AI generated code that was more accessible and better than what he wrote himself. Full episode: https://lnkd.in/e6-Bf7PJ

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Scaling your engineering team from 1 to 50 (and beyond) is one of the biggest tests for any founder. Too many leaders wait until problems force change instead of making proactive decisions that set their teams up to grow. In this micro memo, Bessemer Operating Advisor and long-time CTO Jessica Popp shares lessons from decades leading engineering orgs through every stage of scale. If you’re growing fast, this is your playbook for avoiding decisions you can’t easily undo and building a team that grows with you. 📖 Read the full guide: https://lnkd.in/gfFSgz8b #startups #engineering #techleadership #engineeringmanagement #scalingstartups

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So which models produce HTML that has the least accessibility errors, and at what cost? Mapped it out here (bottom left is the best). This is helpful for understanding which models are most compliant for those with disabilities and do it efficiently. Qwen and Gemini 2.5 Flash lead the pack. Hat tip to Ben Ogilvie for pointing me to this: aimac.ai

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