Notes by Mike Sisk

Engineering,
in practice.

On building teams and platforms, working with AI, and making software systems work.

I’m Mike, an engineering leader with a background in software, cloud infrastructure, and data platforms.

More about me

Selected writing

From the archive

Cloud infrastructure · 2025

A difficult failure in the Cloud DNS API, the workarounds that kept customers running, and the responsibility of operating at scale.

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Engineering teams · 2025

Building a distributed engineering company before remote work became routine.

Infrastructure & startups · 2023

The early infrastructure decisions behind starting a software company.

All posts