Benjamin Charity

Most advice is for building inside an existing category. But when you’re building something new, there’s no playbook. Just ambiguity, first principles, and a lot of bets. How I approach that stage + how I know the model is real: benjamincharity.com/articles/build…

20 years building products and I’ve never hit anything as absurd as @twilio’s SMS approval. Vague rejections, no guidance, fees for retries, and support behind a paywall. AWS runs half the internet and it’s still easier to work with. Anyone have a better path?

Your team isn’t lazy. It’s trapped in a feature factory. Tickets close. Dashboards look great. Users don’t care. Shift from output to outcome. Stop counting features. Start proving impact. benjamincharity.com/articles/escap…

Engineers don’t leave for money. They leave when they can’t see a future. Ladders, growth paths, and dual tracks matter more for retention than perks or pay bumps. Here’s how to keep your best engineers longer: 👉 benjamincharity.com/articles/why-y…

I promise this is my last post-mortem post 😅 Months of research and writing led to this collection of resources. It’s the starting point for every article, framework, and guide in the series. 👉 benjamincharity.com/articles/postm… Incidents are inevitable. Repeating them isn’t.

Incidents aren’t murder mysteries. They’re Swiss cheese. Small holes line up. The system fails. Post-mortems that chase a single cause miss the real lesson: how the system enabled failure. Learn how to think in systems → benjamincharity.com/articles/post-…

Post-mortems fail when people stay silent. Without psychological safety, you don’t just lose facts. You lose truth. How to build safer incident reviews and actually learn from them: benjamincharity.com/articles/post-…

📚 Ready to go all in? The Definitive Guide (60 min) covers the full framework: culture, systems thinking, and execution. It’s the canonical reference. benjamincharity.com/articles/post-…

🧭 Want the practical playbook? The Field Guide (20 min) walks through templates, examples, and fixes you can drop into your next postmortem. benjamincharity.com/articles/post-…

80% of incidents are self-inflicted. 69% lacked alerts and were caught too late. Most postmortems don’t fix it. They’re theater. Blame gets assigned, action items gather dust, and the same outages repeat. Here’s how to break the cycle 👇

Technical debt isn’t rot. It’s momentum. Unmanaged, it grinds you down. Managed, it buys speed, fuels iteration, and keeps you in the market. The real question isn’t “how do we eliminate debt?” It’s “how do we use it as leverage?” 👉 benjamincharity.com/articles/techn…

The move from engineer → director trips up most leaders. Not because of code. Because success changes from building things yourself to enabling others to win. See why this shift is so tough, and how to survive it: benjamincharity.com/articles/leade…

Most startups don’t survive the 2nd wall of engineering growth. Wall 1: Communication (~10 engineers) Wall 2: Coordination (~25 engineers) Wall 3: Culture (~40 engineers) Spot them early. Break through fast. Field guide → benjamincharity.com/articles/scali…

🤖 If AI replaces junior roles, who will become tomorrow’s experts? Fewer juniors today = fewer leaders tomorrow. Are we automating efficiency or breaking workforce development? Read more 🔽 buff.ly/41bkyKt #AI #FutureOfWork #SkillsGap #Automation

Want faster, better web experiences? Start with performance budgets! 🎯 Optimize your apps like Pinterest (+44% revenue!) 📊 Track key metrics like LCP & TTI ⚡ Stay fast without sacrificing features 📖 Full guide 👉 buff.ly/3EtGb0R #WebPerformance #UX #DevOps

🚨 Stop truncating text! 🚨 Cutting off words for a “clean” UI? Bad UX. Users need context, not guesswork. And don’t even get me started on translations… Design for flexibility, not just aesthetics. Here’s how: buff.ly/4hs2qTq #UX #Design #Accessibility

💡 Launch your SaaS startup with $0 (almost). Here’s a guide to the best free tools every founder needs: 🚀 Hosting 📊 Analytics 🔐 User Management Start building smarter, not harder. Get the list here: buff.ly/40x4Lpa #SaaS #Startup #FreeTools #Entrepreneurship

Over-planning = 🚫 progress. The secret? Balanced planning. Focus on essentials, stay flexible, and avoid perfection paralysis. Discover actionable tips to plan smarter, not harder: buff.ly/4g7zDSE #Leadership #ProjectManagement #PlanningTips

🎉 Unveiling my latest: An open-source #RemixJS + #MDX template for web devs! Lightning-fast, dynamic, and free. Perfect performance, #PWA ready, #Tailwind styled. Transform your web projects effortlessly. Curious? Dive in & let's discuss! 🚀 benjamincharity.com/articles/unlea… #WebDev