👋 Hey {{first_name|there}},
The Myth of the “Best Design”
Early in my career, I thought my job as an architect was to find “the best design.”
The cleanest. The fastest. The most elegant.
I’d spend hours comparing frameworks, debating patterns, diagramming abstractions.
But here’s what I eventually realized:
There is no “best” design. Only tradeoffs you accept.
Every system is a bundle of compromises.
You choose speed over safety.
Simplicity over flexibility.
Time-to-market over perfect scalability.
And the mark of a real architect isn’t hiding those tradeoffs, it’s surfacing them clearly so the team can align.
🧭 The Mindset Shift
From: “The design is the deliverable”
To: “The tradeoffs we chose are the deliverables.”
A senior developer might think:
“I produced the diagram, I’m done.”
An architect knows:
“The diagram doesn’t matter unless people understand why we chose this and not that.”
What survives long after the system changes isn’t the boxes and arrows.
It’s the rationale, the thinking behind the design.
That’s what lets future engineers evolve it without breaking its intent.
📔 Why Tradeoffs Matter More Than Designs
Systems Evolve, Decisions Stay
The code will change. The infra will change. But the decisions and the risks you accepted define how it evolves.Tradeoffs Drive Alignment
Stakeholders may not care about your diagrams, but they care deeply about risks, costs, and speed. Tradeoffs frame the conversation in their language.Hidden Tradeoffs = Hidden Landmines
When tradeoffs aren’t written down, teams rediscover them the hard way, during outages, migrations, or incidents.