Holistic Engineering: An Organic Approach to Complex System Evolution

Key Takeaways

• Your code reflects even the decisions you didn't make.
• Common recurring patterns:
• Shared Kitchen Sink – bloated, all-purpose utility libraries.
• Domain Identity Crisis – overloaded “one-size-fits-all” domain models.
• Cirque du Soleil Coding – extreme over-engineering for show rather than function.
• Think of projects as organic socio-technical systems, shaped by both external forces (world events, tech trends, market shifts) and internal forces (organization, product, people, engineering culture).
• Make implicit organizational influences explicit via mapping, modeling, and socializing.
• Holistic Engineering – designing technology in context of the full ecosystem, human and technical.

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Introduction: Engineering in the Real World

Delayed launches, architectures that drift off course, code morphing into unintended complexity — these are rarely purely technical failures.

They often emerge from ignored forces:

• Misaligned reward systems incentivizing poor decisions.
• Structural silos muddling domain boundaries.
• Human dynamics dismissed as “too petty” to matter.

Holistic engineering is about deliberately integrating these non-technical realities into design, planning, and implementation.

> 💡 Organizational forces leave traces in codebases as surely as geological forces leave strata in rock — the difference is we must learn to identify them.

Image source: Tomáš Malík on Pexels

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Phenomena in the Wild — Non-Technical Forces Shaping Systems

Across organizations, industries, and stacks, patterns repeat despite technical differences. Recognizing them early is vital.

Persistent Challenges

• Deadlines slip — alignment with delivery dates is rare.
• Design drift — final systems often differ from their original architecture due to external disruptions or internal miscommunication.

Why Patterns Repeat

• Specialists operate in narrow scopes, rarely examining the broader systemic context.
• Recurrent “natural forces” influence every project:
• Some must be accepted.
• Others mitigated.
• A few overcome.

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Pattern 1: The Shared Kitchen Sink

Shared utility libraries (“common,” “core,” or branded with the company name) are built to be helpful across teams.

Why It’s a Problem

• Huge Blast Radius – One bug can cripple multiple services.
• Invisibility – Over time, devs lose track of what’s inside:
• Features become hard to find.
• Duplication occurs.
• Refactoring Pain – Complexity slows improvements, increases risk, raises bug rates.

Common Root Causes

• People management & rewards encouraging quick additions, not good architecture.
• Delivery pressure leading to shortcuts via “common” code instead of proper modular design.

Mitigations

• Contribution guidelines.
• Strict versioning.
• Service-specific solutions over global code.
• Regular audits.

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Pattern 2: The Domain Identity Crisis

One oversized domain class (“Customer,” “Order”) is forced to serve all teams:

| Team | Needs Example |

|-------------|-----------------------------------------------|

| Marketing | Demographic data, campaign prefs |

| Billing | Payment history, credit scores |

| Support | Ticket history, communication prefs |

| Shipping | Address, delivery preferences |

Effects

• Violates Domain-Driven Design.
• Terminology drifts; understanding fragments.
• Code fails to reflect real business reality.

Causes

• Lack of bounded contexts.
• Absence of domain mapping.
• Weak cross-team communication.

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Pattern 3: Cirque du Soleil Coding

Over-engineered solutions — throwing every design pattern and dependency at simple problems.

Impacts

• Maintenance overhead.
• Debugging difficulty.
• Fragile and slow to change.

Drivers

• Career frameworks valuing tech-stack “breadth” over appropriateness.
• Influential leaders unintentionally enforcing pet approaches.
• Culture of “proving capability” leading to defensive complexity.

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Making the Unconscious Conscious

Many engineers ignore “political” or human dynamics affecting their work.

But organizational forces manifest directly in:

• Architecture scalability.
• Delivery timelines.
• Bug rates.
• System resilience.

> 🧠 Carl Jung: "When an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside as fate."

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Holistic Engineering Core Model

Treat technical systems as organic ecosystems influenced by:

External Forces

• World events – elections, laws, regulations.
• Business trends – market shifts, competitive threats.
• Tech trends – evolving frameworks, architectures.

Internal Forces

• Organization – structure, hierarchy, decision-making flow.
• Product – vision, mission, long-term strategy.
• People – skills, motivations, personal circumstances.
• Engineering – maturity, deployment ops, security/privacy practices.

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Projects at the intersection of multiple systems

External influences (in green)

Internal influences (in green)

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Putting Holistic Engineering Into Action

1. Identify Organizational Forces

• Observe shifts in priorities, compliance needs, staffing, tech stack.
• Map & share insights across stakeholders.

2. Make Implicit Knowledge Explicit

• Document decision-making and communication patterns.
• Model workflows, highlight bottlenecks.

3. Socialize Information

• Share findings org-wide.
• Turn “private frustration” into public calls for improvement.

4. Design Dual Architectures

• North Star – ideal technical vision.
• Pragmatic Current State – feasible under present constraints.

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Evolution Pathways

Plan stepping stones toward North Star via:

• Technical upgrades.
• Process refinements.
• Organizational changes.

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Conclusion

Holistic engineering shifts teams from being passive victims of dysfunction to active system shapers.

By making human, organizational, and external forces visible, we:

• Anticipate challenges.
• Align technical outcomes with reality.
• Deliver sustainable, adaptable systems.

The alternative? Cycles of delay, drift, and impractical “perfect” solutions.

Call to Action: Map the forces shaping your projects. Design for both today’s constraints and tomorrow’s capabilities. Treat every decision — technical or not — as part of the same living system.