Journal
Field notes
What we learned shipping finance and realtime products — without the agency fluff.
01 · 2026-09-29
WebSocket Fanout Runbook for a Micron Night
Ops runbook style notes for quote fanout when MU prints Wed Sep 30 AMC — what we rehearse with clients.
02 · 2026-09-29
Top 10 Questions Before Hiring a Dev Shop
The questions that separate shops that ship from shops that invoice.
03 · 2026-09-29
The Software Is the Cheap Line
2026 quotes for a trading MVP span five figures to six. The spread is scope, and the scope that hurts is not the screens.
04 · 2026-09-29
OpenAI DevDay (Sep 29): Desk Takeaways for Fintech Builds
What our two-person desk will actually consider shipping after DevDay — and what we will refuse to bolt onto an order path.
05 · 2026-09-29
7 Red Flags in Agency Contracts
The contract clauses that predict a bad engagement before it starts.
06 · 2026-09-29
5 Ways to Scope an MVP (and the One That Works)
Every MVP-scoping method, ranked by how often it produces a shipped product.
07 · 2026-09-28
When We Reach for Skia on Order Books
Desk rule: Skia for dense painted books; FlashList for lists. How we decide inside a fixed-price sprint.
08 · 2026-09-28
JSI Sockets vs JS WebSockets in Client Sprints
How we choose socket stacks under fixed scope — profiling first, fashion never.
09 · 2026-09-28
The Data Contract Is the Product
In trading apps, the API contract is the architecture. Define the data first or the UI invents it.
10 · 2026-09-27
Symbol Sharding RFC We Hand Clients Before Earnings Floods
The one-page RFC we attach to discovery when a client’s watchlist will face AMC floods.
11 · 2026-09-27
The Scope Firewall: Saying No on Trading-App Builds
"Can we add crypto too?" is how trading apps die. The scope-firewall rule we run on every build.
12 · 2026-09-27
Feature Flags for Earnings Alert Banners
Banner config for event nights (MU, NKE) — flags, copy review, and no invented numbers.
13 · 2026-09-27
What Belongs in Discovery Before a Paper-Trading Sprint
Two weeks to name the data contract, the ledger, and the line we will not cross. Then a fixed price means something.
14 · 2026-09-26
Acceptance Tests for Watchlists Under AMC Bursts
Test plan language we put in work orders so ‘realtime’ means something on Micron night.
15 · 2026-09-26
The iOS 27 Rebuild: What Agencies Are Charging For Right Now
September 14 forced a rebuild wave. What the work actually involves — and what it should cost.
16 · 2026-09-26
Our Expo OTA Policy When Markets Move Overnight
Desk policy: OTA for JS/copy; store review for native. Overnight prints do not create exceptions.
17 · 2026-09-25
Hiring Notes: What We Look for in Trading-App Engineers
We staff sprints for trading products. These are the signals that predict success.
18 · 2026-09-25
Observability When VIX Is Quiet and Single Names Are Loud
Dashboards we insist on: per-symbol latency, reconnect storms, JS hitches — especially in calm index weeks.
19 · 2026-09-24
Why Fintech Clients Get Fixed-Price Sprints
Hourly billing rewards slowness. In fintech it also punishes the client's biggest risk: scope drift.
20 · 2026-09-23
Discovery for Paper Trading Apps: The Questions That Matter
Before a line of code: the eight questions that decide whether a trading-app build succeeds.
21 · 2026-09-22
Hire Notes: People Who Can Ship Paper-Trading Loops
How we staff sprints that look like Stock Picks — ledger honesty over demo chrome.
22 · 2026-09-22
Case Study: The Earnings Dashboard Sprint
A three-week fixed-price build — calendar, estimates, implied moves — and what we refused to build.
23 · 2026-09-20
Why We Only Do Fixed-Price Sprints
Hourly billing rewards slowness. Here's the alternative structure that keeps everyone honest.
24 · 2026-09-12
What We Learned Building a Paper Trading Platform
Market data contracts, ledger correctness, and why the boring parts are the hard parts.