^[1]I like that “stakeholder” imparts this image of someone holding a pointy wooden bit to ones chest…My team at SeaWorld is, depending on how you look at things, either stretched ridiculously thin, or incredibly efficient at what we do. We’re responsible for: branded toolchains on around iOS and Android codebases (producing builds for each of our brands on each platform from two distinct codebases); a handrolled API gateway frequently described as “the mobile API”, which caches CMS content and abstracts over several different; and a Next.js application that gets variously webviewed into the native apps and delivered on its own. We get all that done, delivering not no features, and all on a team of about 10 engineers, 1.5 product people, 1 designer and 1 QA (and no project managers, if you can believe it! Jokes, I want a PM like I want a static compiler for Python). I contest that the only thing that makes this remotely possible is our continuous deployment automation, and I further assert that focusing on engineering productivity is an excellent locus for IC attention as you move up in seniority and into management/the chain of command. Join me for a tour of the last two years of evolution in CI and CD with my brand new team.

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