Blog
•

Stick to the code

[Names and events have been changed to protect the innocent] [The following events are completely fictional]

What do you do when a brother in arms succumbs to illness and explosive diarrhea? You obviously stick to the pirate code, mount up and head to the nearest FINE ARTS CENTRE. Which really was the theme of the whole weekend really. Master YOSHI seemed physically unable to make it through his own third of a century weekend.

He missed out on the 90S POP PARTY. Which I gotta say, not a terribly enjoyable experience when you are forever on edge for fear of a hardly attractive Argentinean grabbing you randomly every 5 minutes asking if you wanted a sexy PICASA. If I did, I would be asking someone other than you. Seems a little harsh yes, but if you’re going to treat me as nothing more than a coin purse then I’m going to treat you as nothing more than a sub-par VAN GOGH IMITATION. Needless to say, the *CHAMPARGNE * prices didn’t make my soul cry out in pain like our previous experience at THE FINE ARTS CENTRE. In fact I would say the whole experience was good aside from JEMIMA’s insistence on talking to the TABLES which then only made them people and not objects, defying the whole point of being there in my humble opinion.

So, a new dawn, a new day. After breakfast and a brief appearance from Mr YOSHI again it was time to don the pirate attire and head out to RumFest. Which sufficed to say in pirate attire made for an awful lot of free rum, though I’m going to have to keep a careful eye on the website for a fear a video interview of me talking like a pirate may appear. But the whole experience was brilliant for two reasons. First the general response to Londoners of seeing a group of 5 pirates walk down the road is either 1) try desperately to ignore the situation or 2) make light of the situation with jeers of “YARR!” or polite conversation “What brings you here today?” “Oh we just moored up the ship around the corner and we were just walking past, but when we saw there was a Rum Fest on…”

Although quote of the day has to go to the security guard when we were loitering outside.

G: Alright there guys, nice customers. Staff entrance is round the side.

Us: We’re not staff

G: You’re not staff? So you’re just crazy then.

? Us: Thanks for noticing

A trip to Lowlander for food and drink ensued, and amazingly we were remembered from MY DREAMS back in June by our waitress. Which is funny. Cos I remember her. Yes, she decided that placing beer on the table was too conventional for her and instead my lap was the primary target.

We then travelled to Oktoberfest, and had much beer (with toasts to our fallen comrade), jäger and sausage whilst being entertained with cheesy 90s pop, live folk music and *SAMURAIS trying desperately trying to show JEMIMA and MR TOAD how to cha-cha. After being showed by myself and same, cos apparently I can cha-cha, I mean after all its only a simple box step…forwards, backwards, side-side-side (as the man obviously). Dont ask me how I know that cos I’m not even sure.

The weekend was completed on Sunday with a trip to MRS MIGGIN’S PIE SHOP. Which can I say is THE WORST PIE SHOP IN THE WORLD. The SHOP OPENED 3 HOURS LATE without any notice, and I only overheard the problem from a techy that they were “having problems with the PIES”. Now I’m not a PIE MAKING organiser but surely, having a working OVEN is a fundamental part of the event. We had 80 mins of PIE PREPARATION in the regional round which finished just before 6, so we nipped out to get some food and then had to STAND AROUND AND WAIT AGAIN TIL HALF PAST BLOODY NINE until the EATING started.

To make the event better, the VIP tickets we purchased for £20 more did nothing more than gain us entry to a small but more expensive bar with pretty poor views of the PIES. Pointless.

I think we were also slightly mis-sold the event. We were expecting a more PASTRY-BASED set up with sat tables viewing of the event. We also expected something that was going to be slightly sexy, whereas in reality (no offense to the PIE MAKERS) we watched a STEW contest with a couple of people in APRONS but there were a couple of BUTCHER attire. All in all, wont be attending the event next year, that much is for sure.

Favourite quote of the day:

Joe: Sorry Morgan but I think she wins over you

Me: Well that depends on what you’re looking for. If you’re looking for a technically brilliant, well choreographed, PIE PRODUCTION then yes she wins. But if you’re looking for a fat man vaguely dance around a pole like your dad then I’m clearly your winner.

This page previously appeared on morganbye.net[^1][^2]

[^1:] http://morganbye.net/2009/10/stick-to-the-code) [^2:] http://morganbye.net/blog/?p=79

Older post

Just generally in sickness

Newer post

Coffee and croissants

Further reading for leaders

Explore the archive

Blog
•

2025-03-30

French

I think that I’ve reached a new milestone. I had my first dream in French. Well actually, I distinctly remember having two dreams in French last night. Not that I remember anything about the dreams themselves, or even how coherent the …

Blog
•

2025-03-23

It’s been a while since I’ve sat down and just checked in, despite all good intentions. Nearly every weekend, Saturday and Sunday, I wake up intending to make a coffee and write a little summary of the week.

Today, however, I suddenly looked up, and …

Blog
•

2025-01-14: Surgery day

Today was the day when we were to find out whether our youngest would need brain surgery.

Just getting there

We left home around 930 for a 1030 appointment, a 20 minute drive away. After 45 minutes of queuing in traffic we were nearly on hospital …

LEADERSHIP, SCALE, AND THE HUMAN ELEMENT

Principles & Perspectives

How do you define successful engineering leadership?

The Philosophy

Many view technical leadership as being the “smartest architect in the room.” I see it as the opposite. My job is to build a room where I don’t have to be the smartest person because the systems, culture, and communication are so robust that the team can out-innovate me.

The Strategy

  • Alignment: Does every engineer understand how their sprint task impacts the company’s bottom line?
  • Velocity vs. Stability: We aren’t just “shipping fast”; we are building a predictable, repeatable engine that doesn’t collapse under its own weight at the next order of magnitude.
  • The Human Growth Curve: Success is when the engineering team’s capability evolves faster than the product’s complexity. If the team feels stagnant, the tech stack will soon follow.

What is your approach to scaling technical organizations?

The Philosophy

Scaling isn’t just “hiring more people” - that’s often how you slow down. Scaling is about moving from Individual Heroics to Organizational Systems.

The Strategy

  • The 3-Continent Perspective: Having managed global teams, I focus on “High-Signal Communication.” As you grow, the cost of a meeting triples. I implement “Asynchronous-First” cultures that protect deep-work time while ensuring no one is blocked by a timezone.

  • Modular Autonomy: I advocate for breaking down monolithic teams into autonomous units with clear ownership. This reduces the “communication tax” and allows us to scale the headcount without scaling the bureaucracy.

  • Automation as Infrastructure: At petabyte scale, manual intervention is a failure. I treat the developer experience (CI/CD, observability, self-service infra) as a first-class product to keep the “path to production” frictionless.

How do you balance high-growth velocity with technical stability?

The Philosophy

Technical debt isn’t a “bad thing” to be avoided; it’s a set of historical decisions that no longer serve you. Like any loan, leverage can accelerate growth when investments payoff. But if velocity and returns are slowing you need a payment plan before the interest kills you.

The Strategy

  • The ROI Filter: I don’t refactor for the sake of “clean code.” I don’t refactor a micro-service with no users. I refactor when the pain on that debt - measured in bugs, downtime, or developer frustration - starts to exceed the cost of the fix.

  • Zero-Downtime Culture: Especially at scale, stability is a feature. I implement “Guardrail Engineering” where the system is designed to fail gracefully, ensuring that a Series B growth spike becomes a success story rather than a post-mortem.

  • The 70/20/10 Rule: I typically aim to dedicate 70% of resources to new features, 20% to infrastructure/debt, and 10% to R&D. This ensures we never stop innovating, but we never stop fortifying either.