DM
All learning areas
Reusable docs

Engineering Templates

Practical starting points for decisions, incidents, releases, and collaboration.

Topic library

Technical design documentArchitecture decision recordPull-request descriptionBug reportIncident documentPostmortemRunbookRelease checklistDatabase migration planAPI proposalSecurity reviewProject kickoffCareer discussionPromotion evidence document

Featured guides

Practical starting points for the highest-value topics.

Technical design document

Align on the problem and consequential decisions before expensive implementation.

# Context and problem
# Goals / non-goals
# Requirements and constraints
# Proposed design
# Alternatives considered
# Data and API changes
# Security and privacy
# Failure modes and observability
# Rollout / rollback
# Open questions
  1. Keep the document proportional to the decision's cost and reversibility.
  2. Separate requirements from the proposed solution.
  3. Show alternatives and why they were rejected.
  4. Invite review from affected owners before implementation.

Key idea: The value is alignment and decision quality, not document length.

Blameless postmortem

Turn failure into prioritized system improvement.

# Summary and customer impact
# Detection
# Timeline in UTC
# Root and contributing factors
# What went well / poorly
# Recovery
# Action items: owner + due date
# Lessons
  1. Describe conditions and decisions without personal blame.
  2. Separate trigger, root cause, and contributing factors.
  3. Prioritize a small number of durable improvements.
  4. Track action items until completion.

Key idea: A postmortem without completed follow-up work is only a story.

Promotion evidence

Present impact and demonstrated scope without turning growth into a task count.

# Target expectations
# Impact examples
## Context
## My actions and decisions
## Measured outcome
## Collaboration and influence
## What I learned
# Feedback themes
# Remaining gaps
  1. Use your company's actual expectations.
  2. Explain personal contribution without erasing the team.
  3. Prefer measurable outcomes and repeated behavior.
  4. Review gaps with your manager before a formal cycle.

Key idea: Evidence should demonstrate sustained level, not one heroic project.