MC
Marcus Chen
author
Former Staff Engineer at Google now serving as CTO at a Series C fintech startup. Marcus spent 8 years building distributed systems at scale and is passionate about debunking engineering myths with data.
3 articles
Articles by Marcus Chen

tools
I Asked Teams Why They Abandoned Their Code Review Tool. The Answer Was Always the Same.
After talking to dozens of teams who ditched their code review tools, I found one question that predicts success better than any feature comparison.

technology
I Got Promoted to Staff. My More Talented Colleague Didn't. Here's Why.
I've run promotion committees and watched brilliant engineers stay stuck at senior for 8 years. The difference wasn't technical skill. It was three things nobody talks about.

technology
What I Look for When I Interview System Design Candidates
After 50+ FAANG system design interviews, here's the actual rubric interviewers use—and the 90-day prep plan that matches it.