I’m Panji Gautama. I write about engineering leadership, product, and how I work.
Engineering North Star Metrics
Tracking everything makes it difficult to decide what deserves attention. I outline the engineering metrics I have used across four areas: infrastructure, people, observability and security, and productivity. The examples connect each area to measures and tools, offering a starting point for a team that needs a smaller set of shared priorities to monitor and improve.
On forming Technical Program Manager team at Mekari
As Mekari grew across products and teams, delivery needed clearer coordination and visibility. I describe why we evolved the Scrum Master role into Technical Program Management, the responsibilities involved, and the competencies we looked for. The role connects technical dependencies, business priorities, capacity, and communication so teams can identify risks earlier and make better decisions about delivery.
Guidance on Creating New Service
Splitting a monolith into services can leave the original problems untouched. Before designing a new service, I look at customer impact, known problems, success metrics, and domain boundaries. This checklist brings support, security, data, and other developers into the conversation, so an architecture proposal addresses business needs as well as technical concerns.
Answering Yes/No Question
A short bookmark of Shelby Wolstein's joke about asking your boss a simple yes or no question. The post consists of the shared tweet, rather than a management essay or communication framework. Open it for the original reference and a small moment of recognition if a straightforward question has ever led to a complicated answer.
Different types of 1:1 conversations visualised
Some one-to-one conversations feel like ping pong; others become interviews, flow naturally, or struggle to find common ground. This visual reference collects five patterns from an original thread, with short descriptions and diagrams. It offers a way to notice differences in curiosity, reciprocity, and participation when reflecting on how a conversation with another person unfolded.
On Regulated-Tech in Indonesia
Written in 2020 and published in 2021, these notes record the Indonesian regulatory context I was considering for technology teams handling personal data. They discuss consent, security, data classification, storage location, and operational responsibilities. Read them as a historical reference to the considerations behind those engineering decisions, with the date of the original material in mind.
Tech Resume
An internal tech resume helps you remember the work, impact, and learning that might otherwise disappear between performance reviews. Inspired by brag documents, I describe what to record, how it supports career conversations and promotion cases, and why it should stay factual and current. It also gives colleagues a clearer picture of your experience, interests, and aspirations.
Talking about OKR
OKRs should connect team priorities to outcomes people can understand and measure. These notes explain objectives, key results, aspirational goals, and KPIs, then walk through writing and grading them. I also discuss why a feature list is a poor substitute for a result, and why the measurements need to be clear and available from the start of the period.
Standardizing FrontEnd development at Mekari
These notes explain the decision to make Vue a first-class frontend framework at Mekari, using criteria such as flexibility, maintainability, performance, and learning curve. I also discuss the challenges of adoption across existing products and shared components. The post records a decision in its original context, including the need to revisit it as the company's needs change.
API Key Best Practices
API keys deserve the same care as other credentials. These notes collect practices for keeping keys out of source code and client applications, limiting their permissions, separating environments, and managing rotation or suspected exposure. The guiding principle is least privilege: give each application only the access it needs and reduce the impact when a key is compromised.