I'm JP LeBlanc. tinycto is what I've got to show for it.

I've been the first engineer, the fifth manager, and the executive holding the pager when a two-person startup's scrappy habits stopped working at two hundred people. Hired badly more than once, and learned the hard way what the bar actually has to be. Shipped the wrong thing quickly, the right thing too slowly, and eventually noticed those are the same failure wearing different clothes.

None of that's a reason to trust me. The reason is I still do the work. Running engineering at Ada, sure, but also building a dozen small products on the side. Not a hobby. An engineering leader who stops shipping starts giving advice they can't defend anymore.

tinycto exists because most engineering-leadership writing is either a war story with no principle attached, or a principle with no scar tissue behind it. I got tired of choosing. Every lesson here is the version I'd actually hand a new lead on their first difficult Tuesday.