On December 19th, I turned 41.
It was a quiet milestone, but one that carried the heavy gravity of reflection. I realized I have now spent 21 years “shipping.” Not just code, not just products, but versions of myself. Looking back, the most difficult projects I ever shipped weren’t software. They were the migrations of my own identity.
Yesterday, sitting on the floor of my living room in Munich, I was building a new Lego set with my son. We were halfway through when we realized a foundational piece was missing. The structure was wobbling. There was no way to patch it; we had to tear it down and start again.
As I watched my son’s frustration, I wished I had what he had: a glossy instruction booklet. A step-by-step guide that guarantees if you follow the rules, everything fits.
But in my professional life, there is no manual. I am currently mid-surgery on a living system: an entire tech organization that was built without a blueprint, and now needs to be taken apart to be saved.
The Diagnostic: Why I Accepted the Project
When I first stepped into this advising role, I didn’t see a code problem. I saw a latency problem. I saw a system suffering from severe “Decision Churn” and a leadership team paralyzed by the fear of breaking things.
But if I am being honest, I didn’t take this project just because the problem was interesting. I took it because of a feeling that has been growing in my chest for years.
I have been away from Iran for a long time. I have built a career in the West, working with the best engineers in the world. But there is a quiet, persistent voice that tells me I owe a debt to the soil I came from. Looking at those talented engineers in Tehran, I don’t just see “clients.” I see my people. I see a potential that is being suffocated by bad processes, and I feel a deep, almost desperate responsibility to transfer what I know.
It’s not just consulting; it’s an attempt to pay back a debt that cannot be calculated in currency.
The Cultural Friction: Straightforwardness vs. Silence
This is the hardest part of the interface. I come from a world—shaped by Google and the high-efficiency culture of Munich—where Straightforwardness is a requirement for speed. In high-performance environments, clarity is kindness. If the code is bad, we say it is bad.
In this organization, I have hit a wall. Directness is often perceived as “bothersome,” aggressive, or even rude. There is a pervasive lack of transparency that acts as a massive technical bottleneck. The result is “Shadow Technical Debt.” Problems aren’t solved in the code; they are hidden in the silence. My daily battle is convincing the team that we cannot fix what we cannot discuss.
The Battle for the Written Word
My biggest challenge isn’t the technical stack—it is the Communication Stack. We are missing the foundational “culture of writing” that allows an organization to scale. I see:
- A heavy reliance on high-latency, face-to-face oversight.
- Decisions made in hallways and forgotten by the next stand-up.
- The “Oral Tradition” of engineering, which leads to total knowledge loss.
I am waging a war for Asynchronous Clarity. I am teaching the team that documentation is not “extra work”—it is the work. This is painful. It forces them to think clearly, and thinking is harder than talking. But it is the only way to achieve Operational Independence.
The Surgery: Refactoring the Future
I am currently transforming the org chart into a structure that guarantees features actually reach the user. Sometimes, this feels exactly like that moment with the Lego set. I look at the existing structure—teams entangled, dependencies messy—and I realize we can’t just patch it. We have to be brave enough to dismantle the wrongly built sections.
This surgery requires three specific tools:
- The Mentor’s Scalpel: Training managers to diagnose root causes, not just check status.
- The Bulldozer Mentality: Aggressively eliminating external blockers.
- The New Mandate: Shifting focus from “process adherence” to “outcome efficiency.”
Conclusion: No Booklet, Just Intuition
he load is high. The cultural gap makes my life harder every day. There are mornings I wake up in Munich, look at the grey sky, and feel the weight of that “debt” I’m trying to pay.
I often wish I had that Lego booklet for this organization. Page 1, Step 1. But organizations are made of humans, not plastic bricks. There is no manual. There is only the intuition built over 21 years, the courage to tear down what doesn’t work, and the hope that when we rebuild it, the structure will finally stand on its own.
This is a powerful, reflective piece. To turn it into a high-impact blog post, I’ve used a clean, professional structure that emphasizes your 21-year journey and the emotional stakes of your work.
The Engineering of Organizations: Surgery on the “Human Layer”
January 6, 2026 | Leadership / Organizational Design
On December 19th, I turned 41.
It was a quiet milestone, but one that carried the heavy gravity of reflection. I realized I have now spent 21 years “shipping.” Not just code, not just products, but versions of myself. Looking back, the most difficult projects I ever shipped weren’t software. They were the migrations of my own identity.
Yesterday, sitting on the floor of my living room in Munich, I was building a new Lego set with my son. We were halfway through when we realized a foundational piece was missing. The structure was wobbling. There was no way to patch it; we had to tear it down and start again.
As I watched my son’s frustration, I wished I had what he had: a glossy instruction booklet. A step-by-step guide that guarantees if you follow the rules, everything fits.
But in my professional life, there is no manual. I am currently mid-surgery on a living system: an entire tech organization that was built without a blueprint, and now needs to be taken apart to be saved.
The Diagnostic: Why I Accepted the Project
When I first stepped into this advising role, I didn’t see a code problem. I saw a latency problem. I saw a system suffering from severe “Decision Churn” and a leadership team paralyzed by the fear of breaking things.
But if I am being honest, I didn’t take this project just because the problem was interesting. I took it because of a feeling that has been growing in my chest for years.
I have been away from Iran for a long time. I have built a career in the West, working with the best engineers in the world. But there is a quiet, persistent voice that tells me I owe a debt to the soil I came from. Looking at those talented engineers in Tehran, I don’t just see “clients.” I see my people. I see a potential that is being suffocated by bad processes, and I feel a deep, almost desperate responsibility to transfer what I know.
It’s not just consulting; it’s an attempt to pay back a debt that cannot be calculated in currency.
The Cultural Friction: Straightforwardness vs. Silence
This is the hardest part of the interface. I come from a world—shaped by Google and the high-efficiency culture of Munich—where Straightforwardness is a requirement for speed. In high-performance environments, clarity is kindness. If the code is bad, we say it is bad.
In this organization, I have hit a wall. Directness is often perceived as “bothersome,” aggressive, or even rude. There is a pervasive lack of transparency that acts as a massive technical bottleneck. The result is “Shadow Technical Debt.” Problems aren’t solved in the code; they are hidden in the silence. My daily battle is convincing the team that we cannot fix what we cannot discuss.
The Battle for the Written Word
My biggest challenge isn’t the technical stack—it is the Communication Stack. We are missing the foundational “culture of writing” that allows an organization to scale. I see:
- A heavy reliance on high-latency, face-to-face oversight.
- Decisions made in hallways and forgotten by the next stand-up.
- The “Oral Tradition” of engineering, which leads to total knowledge loss.
I am waging a war for Asynchronous Clarity. I am teaching the team that documentation is not “extra work”—it is the work. This is painful. It forces them to think clearly, and thinking is harder than talking. But it is the only way to achieve Operational Independence.
The Surgery: Refactoring the Future
I am currently transforming the org chart into a structure that guarantees features actually reach the user. Sometimes, this feels exactly like that moment with the Lego set. I look at the existing structure—teams entangled, dependencies messy—and I realize we can’t just patch it. We have to be brave enough to dismantle the wrongly built sections.
This surgery requires three specific tools:
- The Mentor’s Scalpel: Training managers to diagnose root causes, not just check status.
- The Bulldozer Mentality: Aggressively eliminating external blockers.
- The New Mandate: Shifting focus from “process adherence” to “outcome efficiency.”
Conclusion: No Booklet, Just Intuition
The load is high. The cultural gap makes my life harder every day. There are mornings I wake up in Munich, look at the grey sky, and feel the weight of that “debt” I’m trying to pay.
I often wish I had that Lego booklet for this organization. Page 1, Step 1. But organizations are made of humans, not plastic bricks. There is no manual. There is only the intuition built over 21 years, the courage to tear down what doesn’t work, and the hope that when we rebuild it, the structure will finally stand on its own.
git commit -m "Refactoring the Human Layer"
closing my laptop. Going to bed!
Refactoring Life, One Ride at a Time 
Leave a comment