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System design interviews often focus on architecture, scalability, and performance, especially for senior engineering roles. But there is one critical dimension that is frequently overlooked: cost. In this post, I share why adding cloud cost estimation to your system design answers can significantly elevate your interview performance. Using a practical Azure-based example, I walk through how cost awareness demonstrates real-world engineering maturity, business alignment, and pragmatic decision-making that interviewers genuinely value.

In software development, knowing how to write clean code is important. Knowing when to stop improving it is even more critical. Refactoring can quickly turn from a healthy practice into a costly obsession, slowing teams down and putting projects at risk. In this post, I share lessons from real-world experience on why “good enough” is often the smartest choice, how software lifespan should guide refactoring decisions, and when polishing code truly pays off.

90% of code gets written once and rarely gets a second chance. Yet we keep hoping refactoring will save us. What if the real leverage isn’t in the code, but in us? This article explores first-draft excellence: how to write resilient, high-quality code from day one with possibly one attempt, and evolve yourself as the developer who makes it possible. Stop relying on “later fixes.” Start building smarter, from the first line.

Many engineering teams put great effort into perfect technical decisions, yet overlook one factor that quietly shapes the long-term health of the team. How decisions are shared, who gets to participate, and how much room people have to learn through experience can determine whether a team stays active or slowly becomes passive. In the article below, I explore why relying on a small group of decision makers harms growth, how thoughtful participation builds stronger engineers, and why small risks often create big returns. I hope it resonates with anyone working to build a healthier and more engaged software team.