Microservices Are Organizational Scaling Patterns, Not Technical Solutions

In a tech landscape often dominated by buzzwords and fleeting trends, this conversation with Bassem Dghaidi offers a refreshing, grounded perspective on system design, career development, and content creation. Dghaidi, a senior software engineer at GitHub and a self-proclaimed "de-influencer," challenges conventional wisdom, particularly around the premature adoption of microservices and the overemphasis on formal credentials. The hidden consequence revealed is that many widely adopted "solutions" in tech, like microservices, are often misapplied, leading to increased complexity and slower development cycles rather than the intended benefits. This discussion is crucial for mid-career engineers (3+ years of experience) who are at a critical juncture where their early decisions can either build a sustainable, efficient career or lead them into technical debt and organizational friction. By understanding the systemic implications of architectural choices and career paths, readers can gain a significant advantage in navigating the complexities of modern software engineering.

The Unseen Costs of Premature Microservice Adoption

Bassem Dghaidi’s critique of microservices cuts through the industry hype, positing that they are fundamentally an organizational scaling pattern, not merely a technical one. The common misconception, he argues, is that microservices are a silver bullet for technical scalability. This misunderstanding leads many teams to adopt them far too early, before their organization or codebase has matured to a point where the benefits outweigh the substantial overhead.

"Microservices are a they are not a software architecture pattern as much as they are a remapping of an organizational structure onto systems and these microservices aim to solve organizational inefficiencies and they aim to solve the problem of concurrent shipping or building features across a team of engineers within an organization or a company."

The downstream effect of this premature adoption is often a significant slowdown. Teams find themselves bogged down not just by the complexity of distributed systems, but by the supporting platform required to manage the lifecycle, deployment, and communication of numerous small services. This creates a scenario where the management of microservices becomes the bottleneck, rather than the individual services themselves. Dghaidi emphasizes that for smaller teams or less mature codebases, a well-structured monolith or a modular approach within a monorepo is often far more effective. The true value of microservices, he suggests, emerges when teams are large enough that engineers begin to impede each other’s progress, necessitating clear domain boundaries and independent team ownership.

The Illusion of Credentials: Experience as the True North Star

Dghaidi’s personal journey, from a self-taught developer to a senior engineer at GitHub, provides a powerful counterpoint to the industry’s often rigid adherence to formal education. While acknowledging that a degree can be a valuable logistical tool, particularly for immigration and credentialing, he firmly believes that practical, hands-on experience often outweighs formal academic knowledge. He recounts his own experience dropping out of a computer science program to pursue freelancing, a path that proved incredibly fruitful.

"At some point in time credentials don't matter as much and nobody's gonna ask you about your gpa at school or even bother to ask you about your college degree and whatnot."

This perspective highlights a critical systemic issue: the industry’s reliance on proxies for competence. Titles and degrees can obscure the reality of an engineer’s actual impact and problem-solving ability. Dghaidi’s experience as a solution architect, working with diverse enterprise customers, broadened his understanding of how software is built and scaled in the real world, a perspective often missing in purely development-focused roles. This holistic view shapes his opinions and allows him to connect immediate technical decisions to broader business and operational outcomes, a crucial skill that transcends any single credential.

Git Internals: Demystifying the Black Box

The decision to rebuild Git from scratch in Go, while a personal learning endeavor, also serves a broader educational purpose. Dghaidi notes that Git, despite its ubiquity, remains a black box for many developers. Understanding its internals, particularly concepts like rebasing, is essential for effective collaboration and managing large codebases. The challenge, he observes, lies in the abstract nature of Git’s data structures and the semantic complexity of its commands.

"The best way to actually do that is not by reading about the internals because they're always going to be abstract but actually redo rebuilding it and rewriting it is a fantastic learning opportunity to really absorb what the trade offs some of the decision making and to demystify the technology underneath."

The consequence of not understanding Git’s internals is often a reliance on opaque tools and a fear of performing complex operations like rebasing. This can lead to inefficient workflows, messy commit histories, and difficulties in managing large monorepos or collaborative projects. By diving deep into Git’s inner workings, developers can move beyond simply consuming the tool to truly understanding its mechanics, enabling more informed decisions and a greater mastery of their development environment. This is particularly relevant for engineers dealing with large-scale Git operations, where performance and clarity are paramount.

The "De-Influencer" Stance: Prioritizing Depth Over Hype

Dghaidi’s self-proclaimed "de-influencer" status is a direct response to the often superficial and hype-driven nature of tech content creation. He expresses a disdain for social media algorithms that prioritize engagement over substance and for "influencers" who sensationalize trends without deep understanding. His philosophy centers on creating educational content that is both technically rigorous and genuinely useful, even if it appeals to a smaller, more discerning audience.

"I hate influencers like in tech specifically like I understand entertainment for the sake of entertainment but when you do edutainment and at the same time your opinions and takes on something are not necessarily at the level where they should be where the depth that they should be and then when we start sensationalizing the wrong things in the industry I really really hate that."

The consequence of this approach is content that might not achieve viral reach but fosters genuine learning and critical thinking. Dghaidi encourages his audience to question his own takes, emphasizing that his goal is to provide a perspective, not a dogma. This commitment to intellectual honesty and a focus on practical, experience-driven insights is what sets his content apart. It encourages engineers to move beyond blindly following trends and instead develop a deeper, more critical understanding of the technologies and practices they employ.

Key Action Items

• Immediate Action (Next 1-3 Months):

  • Re-evaluate Microservice Adoption: For teams with fewer than 10-15 engineers or those not experiencing significant inter-team blocking, critically assess if microservices are truly necessary or if a modular monolith/monorepo would suffice.
  • Deepen Git Understanding: Dedicate time to understanding the core concepts of Git, particularly rebase, merge, and the .git directory structure. Watch resources like Bassem Dghaidi's series to demystify these.
  • Critically Assess Tech Trends: Approach new architectural patterns or tools with skepticism. Ask: "What problem does this actually solve for us?" rather than adopting it because it's popular.
  • Seek Diverse Role Experience: If possible, actively look for opportunities to understand different facets of the software development lifecycle, beyond just coding (e.g., customer interaction, operational challenges).

• Medium-Term Investment (Next 3-12 Months):

  • Invest in System Design Fundamentals: For engineers with 2-5 years of experience, actively seek out resources (like Dghaidi's upcoming course) that focus on the practical, real-world implications of system design choices, not just interview-style problems.
  • Document Decision Rationale: When architectural decisions are made, meticulously document the why behind them, including anticipated trade-offs and downstream consequences, to build a historical record and facilitate future learning.
  • Build a "De-Influencing" Filter: Develop a personal framework for evaluating new technologies and methodologies, prioritizing long-term maintainability and organizational health over immediate buzz or perceived elegance.

• Long-Term Payoff (12-18+ Months):

  • Cultivate Organizational Maturity: If adopting microservices, ensure the organization has the infrastructure, tooling, and team structure to support them effectively. This is a significant investment that pays off only after substantial groundwork.
  • Develop Pattern Recognition: Continuously seek out and analyze diverse engineering experiences (your own and others') to build a robust library of heuristics and pattern recognition for system design and problem-solving. This delayed payoff comes from accumulated wisdom.
  • Champion Pragmatism: Advocate for pragmatic, context-aware technical decisions within your team and organization, pushing back against dogma and hype in favor of solutions that are sustainable and effective for your specific circumstances. This creates a lasting competitive advantage through resilience.