How I learned to love the rebuild: How to know when to reinvest in your systems

Description

There’s a saying about perfectly architected systems: we’ve never heard of them because those companies never get off the ground. When you first get going, the only thing you should focus on is finding product-market fit. Picking the stack that works right now, fast, is the right choice. Yet once you reach critical mass, waiting too long to rearchitect can torpedo your reliability and ability to grow. So how do you know when it’s time to pause and reinvest in your systems? What are the signs that it’s time to break things apart? Knowing what this transition looks like, and accepting that every company that has velocity will eventually get here, will help you understand that retooling your system is a sign of success, not of failure.

Rob Zuber outlines how to pick your “Goldilocks moment” to update your systems: not too early and not too late. He’ll also share some critical moments at CircleCI and how Docker, Go, Kubernetes, and other tools replaced simpler initial systems to allow CircleCI to hit massive scale.