In this article, Sean Goedecke outlines his approach to successfully shipping projects in large tech companies, emphasizing the significant differences between coding and project management. He argues that shipping requires a proactive and meticulous focus; it's not an automatic result of completing coding tasks but rather a strategic effort to align with company leadership and goals. Effective communication, maintaining trust with leadership, and anticipating potential issues are critical components of the shipping process. He also stresses the importance of being prepared for rapid deployment through techniques like feature flags and encourages engineers to embrace early and courageous deployment practices.

Key Points:

• Shipping projects in big tech is challenging and requires focused priority.
• Shipping means securing leadership approval, not just deploying code.
• Trust and communication with leadership are essential for successful project shipping.
• Anticipating problems and preparing fallback plans are key to smooth launches.
• Scale back coding tasks as project launch approaches for better issue management.
• Regularly assess the ability to ship immediately and act with courage.
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