Hi fellow thinker 👋

Thoughtful Engineering aims to educate, demystify, and promote healthy engineering cultures.

The original purpose of Agile tooling and methodology was to bring people outside of engineering in. We’re now at the point where most of these tools build more frustration than they do understanding.

Ex: how do explain “the ROI” of maintenance?

How do you estimate a new integration in “story points”?

Especially in the age of AI and rapid change, we badly need to update what we consider to be “best practices”.

Follow us for fresh, thoughtful, and (always responsibly) contrarian takes.

About the Author

Christine Miao created technical accounting while leading her team through 2x acquisitions during the pandemic. It was a way to quickly and clearly explain the value of senior engineers to shareholders who cared only about short-term EBITDA.

Previously, she led some of the first Agile Transformation projects at McKinsey Digital. She has worked with dozens of organizations - from idea to Fortune 50 - launch and improve their products.

She now researches technical accounting fulltime while writing for Thoughtful Engineering, which aims to educate, demystify, and promote healthy engineering cultures.

About Technical Accounting

Technical Accounting helps measure resourcing, maintenance, and architecture for engineering teams.

It’s nuanced enough to cover complex topics like tech debt or breaking up monoliths. It’s intuitive enough for your grandmother to understand.

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(Responsibly) contrarian takes on modern software engineering.

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Creator of Technical Accounting. Come say hi 👋
Founder of Scout. Mets fan, MoMA wanderer, dinner party host, bad surfer.