https://chrisclines.co.uk/blog Engineering post-mortems, distributed systems write-ups, and telemetry architecture notes. en-gb Tue, 20 Oct 2026 20:56:16 GMT https://chrisclines.co.uk/blog?article=github-for-junior-developers https://chrisclines.co.uk/blog?article=github-for-junior-developers Tue, 22 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT For junior developers, GitHub isn't just a cloud drive for code. It's a public ledger of your engineering habits, communication skills, and technical evolution. Career & Growth https://chrisclines.co.uk/blog?article=the-promotion-gap https://chrisclines.co.uk/blog?article=the-promotion-gap Tue, 22 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Writing perfect code won't get you promoted to Senior Engineer. Here is the framework engineering managers use to evaluate readiness for the next level. Career & Growth https://chrisclines.co.uk/blog?article=scientific-method-debugging https://chrisclines.co.uk/blog?article=scientific-method-debugging Fri, 18 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Junior developers guess and check. Senior developers use the scientific method. A step-by-step tutorial on isolating and destroying stubborn bugs. Engineering Practices https://chrisclines.co.uk/blog?article=fallacy-of-infinite-abstraction https://chrisclines.co.uk/blog?article=fallacy-of-infinite-abstraction Tue, 15 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Modern software development is running a dangerous deficit: we are piling abstractions on top of leaky foundations, trading long-term system stability for short-term developer convenience. Engineering Philosophy https://chrisclines.co.uk/blog?article=pragmatic-api-design https://chrisclines.co.uk/blog?article=pragmatic-api-design Sat, 12 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT A tutorial on elevating your backend skills by designing APIs that handle network failures, scale efficiently, and protect database integrity. Architecture https://chrisclines.co.uk/blog?article=writing-context-not-just-code https://chrisclines.co.uk/blog?article=writing-context-not-just-code Tue, 08 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT The difference between mid-level and senior engineers rarely lies in typing speed. It lies in making architectural trade-offs legible to the rest of the company. Engineering Leadership https://chrisclines.co.uk/blog?article=syntax-is-cheap-system-stewardship https://chrisclines.co.uk/blog?article=syntax-is-cheap-system-stewardship Tue, 01 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT As AI tools commoditize syntax generation, the value of a software engineer moves from writing functions to defining system boundaries, data invariants, and failure modes. Technical Leadership https://chrisclines.co.uk/blog?article=lindy-effect-in-software https://chrisclines.co.uk/blog?article=lindy-effect-in-software Tue, 18 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT The Lindy Effect dictates that the future life expectancy of technology is proportional to its current age. Here is why boring, battle-tested technologies consistently outperform modern framework churn. Architecture Strategy https://chrisclines.co.uk/blog?article=distributed-mutexes-redis-redlock https://chrisclines.co.uk/blog?article=distributed-mutexes-redis-redlock Mon, 10 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT Why naive Redis distributed locks fail under clock drift and garbage collection pauses, and how fencing tokens prevent split-brain state mutations. Systems Engineering https://chrisclines.co.uk/blog?article=bypassing-react-vdom-60fps https://chrisclines.co.uk/blog?article=bypassing-react-vdom-60fps Tue, 28 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT Eliminating React re-render thrashing inside high-frequency render loops by decoupling state management from the virtual DOM reconciliation tree. Frontend Performance https://chrisclines.co.uk/blog?article=boring-tech-in-production https://chrisclines.co.uk/blog?article=boring-tech-in-production Sun, 19 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT Novelty is fun in weekend hackathons, but production reliability belongs to proven, predictable tools. Why choosing boring technology saves teams. Architecture https://chrisclines.co.uk/blog?article=postgis-spatial-indexing-at-scale https://chrisclines.co.uk/blog?article=postgis-spatial-indexing-at-scale Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT How to optimize multi-gigabyte spatial polygon intersections from 15-second timeouts down to sub-40ms execution times using two-phase spatial filtering. Database Performance https://chrisclines.co.uk/blog?article=zero-cold-start-serverless https://chrisclines.co.uk/blog?article=zero-cold-start-serverless Sat, 02 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Practical architectural patterns for eliminating container spin-up latency and database socket exhaustion in event-driven serverless environments. Cloud & DevOps https://chrisclines.co.uk/blog?article=scaling-node-microservices https://chrisclines.co.uk/blog?article=scaling-node-microservices Thu, 15 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMT A post-mortem on handling bursty e-commerce checkout traffic without cold-start spikes or memory leak accumulation. Cloud & Microservices