SLI Evolution Stages

How to dodge vanity metrics and measure the right service level indicator and why?

Aug 27 • 

Alex Ewerlöf

17

SLI Compass: Fidelity and Granularity

A Mental Model to Assess Existing SLIs and Evaluate New Ones. We discuss 2 dimension: fidelity shows how closely your SLI is measuring the user…

Aug 8 • 

Alex Ewerlöf

8

3

Service Level Topology

Visualizing the service consumption and measurement topology while avoiding the most common SLI/SLO pitfalls

Aug 3 • 

Alex Ewerlöf

1

June 2025

SLA vs SLO

Demystifying the most common misconception in Service Level jargon

Jun 21 • 

Alex Ewerlöf

22

4

Wardley Maps & Pace Layering for Senior Tech Leads and Engineering Leaders

Intro to both tools, why they exist, how they overlap and pragmatic tips how to use them and when

Jun 6 • 

Alex Ewerlöf

29

4

May 2025

Ephemeral taskforce

The pragmatic alternative to technical committees

May 31 • 

Alex Ewerlöf

12

When a team is too big

What signs to look for and how to increase productivity with all-round skillset

May 15 • 

Alex Ewerlöf

27

4

Staff archetypes are anti-patterns

Why the Staff+ archetypes are counterproductive and what to do instead?

May 14 • 

Alex Ewerlöf

30

1

April 2025

Staff+ self-onboarding questions

Useful questions to get a head start as a newly hired Staff, Principal, or Distinguished engineer

Apr 17 • 

Alex Ewerlöf

36

February 2025

Premature optimization

A mental model to detect and prevent optimizing the wrong thing, at the wrong time, or for the wrong reasons

Feb 24 • 

Alex Ewerlöf

24

Async map with limited parallelism in JavaScript

Using generators and promises to control backpressure

Feb 23 • 

Alex Ewerlöf

12

Gen AI assimilation

Assimilating creative work ignoring copyright law

Feb 13 • 

Alex Ewerlöf

8