So What’s the Secret? How Do the Best Engineering Teams Actually Stay Fast?

In the last 18 months I have spoken to 250+ Engg leaders (Directors and above) and there is one thing I can tell you with absolute certainty. They are freakishly fast.

Isn't quality more important than speed?

Look, quality is great. Everyone loves quality. But the problem is, if you're a startup, you don’t even know what “quality” means yet. You think you do, but until real users interact with your product, you’re guessing. The faster you ship, the faster you learn.

Startups die because they move too slowly—not because they ship with a few rough edges. The goal is to iterate towards quality, not delay shipping in pursuit of perfection.

But what if we ship something bad and users hate it?

First of all, early adopters expect imperfection. They aren’t looking for a flawless experience; they’re looking for something new and valuable. If they see rapid improvements, they’ll stick around.

Second, what’s worse: launching something with minor issues that you can fix, or spending months polishing something no one wants? The real risk isn’t shipping a buggy product; it’s spending too much time building the wrong thing.

What happens when we run into quality issues? Won’t fixing them slow us down?

Yes, and that’s exactly why you need to move fast.

Startups have a high Time-to-Fix (TTF) because they lack mature processes, monitoring, and dedicated QA teams. Bugs take longer to diagnose, engineers are stretched thin, and documentation is weak.

But here’s the thing—slowing down doesn’t fix that. You fix quality by making iteration cycles faster, not by avoiding speed. Build systems that help you detect and fix issues quickly rather than trying to prevent every issue upfront.

So how do we balance speed with not shipping garbage?

The key is to ship fast, but with guardrails. Here’s how:

1. Ship Small, Reversible Changes

• Instead of massive releases, push small, incremental updates.
• Use feature flags to control rollouts.
• Deploy to a small user group before going wide.

2. Focus on Fixing Fast, Not Just Preventing Bugs

• Set up real-time monitoring. Use logs and alerts to catch issues early.
• Have a rollback plan—if something breaks, revert instantly.
• Measure Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR) instead of obsessing over preventing failures.

3. Prioritize Bugs Based on Impact, Not Just Presence

Not all bugs are created equal. Some should block a release; most should not.

Here’s how to categorize them:

1. Critical Bugs (e.g., security flaws, data loss)

• Impact: High
• Fix Urgency: Immediate
• Action: Block release until fixed

2. High-Priority Bugs (e.g., core feature broken)

• Impact: Medium
• Fix Urgency: Within 24-48 hours
• Action: Ship with a fix plan

3. Medium-Priority Bugs (e.g., minor UI issues, rare crashes)

• Impact: Low
• Fix Urgency: Fix in the next sprint
• Action: Ship

4. Low-Priority Bugs (e.g., typos, small glitches)

• Impact: Negligible
• Fix Urgency: Backlog
• Action: Ship

But doesn’t moving fast mean more tech debt?

Sure. But guess what? Tech debt is inevitable. The difference is whether you accumulate it consciously or blindly.

Bad tech debt happens when you write sloppy code without a plan. Good tech debt is strategic—you take shortcuts knowing you’ll refactor later when needed.

The best teams move fast, but keep an eye on where the cracks are forming so they can fix them at the right time.

Doesn’t this approach work only for small startups? What about when we scale?

It works at scale, too. The best companies don’t slow down as they grow; they scale their ability to move fast.

At first, you might rely on gut instinct and manual testing. As you scale, you add:

• More automation (CI/CD pipelines, end-to-end tests)
• Better monitoring (error tracking, observability tools)
• Smarter release strategies (canary deployments, staged rollouts)

Speed is a muscle. The companies that stay fast are the ones that keep practicing rather than letting bureaucracy slow them down.

So you’re saying “move fast and break things”? That doesn’t always work.

No, that’s outdated. The goal isn’t to break things—it’s to move fast and learn faster.

Quality is not about preventing every issue; it’s about fixing problems before they hurt you. Instead of aiming for perfection, optimize for:

• Faster learning cycles (ship, measure, iterate)
• Quick recovery (catch and fix issues early)
• User-driven improvements (build what actually matters)

Final Thought

The best startups don’t get ahead by moving slow and being careful. They get ahead by moving fast, learning fast, and adapting fast. If your Time-to-Fix (TTF) is high, slowing down won’t help—you need to make fixing faster and more systematic.

Velocity doesn’t mean shipping garbage. It means shipping smart. And the teams that do it well? They don’t just win. They redefine the game.