Learn to Love the Rebuild
Refactoring isn't a necessary evil -- it is the job. Why the best product teams rebuild constantly, at every scale.

Developer Advocate & Startup CTO
I work as a co-founder & CTO at Craftwork — I'm a founder & product builder with background in design and development.
Find me on Bluesky @mikebifulco.com, Threads @irreverentmike or Mastodon.
Refactoring isn't a necessary evil -- it is the job. Why the best product teams rebuild constantly, at every scale.
Stable products still need maintenance. Defaults and shiny features quietly tax systems over time, and efficiency is a sign of craftsmanship, not penny-pinching.
Next.js Link prefetching quietly burned through 15 GB of bandwidth on my Vercel-hosted blog. Here's how I fixed it.
The tools I use as CTO and product engineer at a Y Combinator-backed startup in 2026.
Most habits don't fall apart because people quit. They fall apart because they aren't sticky.

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