What Systems and Signal Is About
The name comes from two things every builder wrestles with: the system you work in, and the signal you choose to follow.
Most teams chase velocity, frameworks, or the next migration. Fewer pause to ask how their systems shape behavior and/or how noise became the default.
That space between how things work and how they should work is what this publication explores.
Why this exists
Organizations talk about speed, alignment, and autonomy while quietly burning out the people who make those words real. Good engineers turn cynical. Sharp thinkers drown in process. Incentives and slogans diverge, and most people learn to stop noticing.
This publication is for people who haven’t stopped noticing.
If you think clarity compounds you are in the right place.
What you’ll find here
Write your employment equation like an engineer, not a romantic. Map the three decision-makers whose “yes” unlocks your work. Stop surfacing concern without structure; flag it with severity, action path, and next steps.
Essays on how systems evolve and how incentives quietly steer technical decisions. Frameworks you can use today: control ledgers, decision snapshots, exit triggers. Pattern recognition for navigating organizations as they actually run.
No performative outrage. Just the mechanics underneath.
Why I’m writing this
To keep my own pattern recognition sharp. To force myself to name what I’m seeing before it becomes ambient anxiety. To maintain standards in systems that reward drift.
Writing clarifies thinking.
If it’s useful to you, good. That compounds the value.
You’ll know fast
Three future posts will show you if the frameworks land or not.
If they sharpen your decisions, subscribe.
If they don’t, no hard feelings, just different signal.