Your Org Chart Is Your Architecture

👋 Hey there,

You’ve probably seen this before:

• A service boundary that mirrors a team boundary, but doesn't make technical sense.

• A data model shaped more by team turf than domain logic.

• A system that’s hard to change because ownership is unclear.

At first, it feels like a coincidence. But it's not.

That’s Conway’s Law in action, and ignoring it is how good designs become painful systems.

Let’s dig into this mindset shift and how to design with team dynamics in mind.

🧭 The Mindset Shift

From: “Teams work inside the system”
To: “Teams shape the system”

Most developers are trained to see the system as technical boxes, layers, and flows.

But architects see something else:

• Communication paths

• Ownership patterns

• Friction points

• Cross-team boundaries

That’s where real complexity lives.

This shift is what separates strong senior engineers from effective architects. Because code is easy to change, people and politics are not.