Design and engineering shouldn't be separate steps

Most software goes through the same sequence: someone writes requirements, a designer makes mockups, and a separate engineering team rebuilds those mockups in code. Each handoff loses information.

By the time engineering starts, decisions already got made without knowing what's actually possible to build well. That's how you end up with an interface that looks right in a design file and falls apart the moment real data hits it.

We build the interface and the backend in parallel, on the same team. When a screen needs a certain kind of data, the person designing it can ask the person building the API directly — no ticket, no meeting.

This isn't about skipping design. It's about making design decisions with engineering constraints already in the room, so the first version is closer to the final one.

The result is fewer rewrites. Not because the design was perfect on paper, but because the gap between the plan and the product stayed small the whole way through.