Journal
Field notes
What we learned shipping finance and realtime products — without the agency fluff.
01 · 2026-09-29
WebSocket Fanout Runbook for a Micron Night
Ops runbook style notes for quote fanout when MU prints Wed Sep 30 AMC — what we rehearse with clients.
02 · 2026-09-29
The Software Is the Cheap Line
2026 quotes for a trading MVP span five figures to six. The spread is scope, and the scope that hurts is not the screens.
03 · 2026-09-29
OpenAI DevDay (Sep 29): Desk Takeaways for Fintech Builds
What our two-person desk will actually consider shipping after DevDay — and what we will refuse to bolt onto an order path.
04 · 2026-09-28
When We Reach for Skia on Order Books
Desk rule: Skia for dense painted books; FlashList for lists. How we decide inside a fixed-price sprint.
05 · 2026-09-28
JSI Sockets vs JS WebSockets in Client Sprints
How we choose socket stacks under fixed scope — profiling first, fashion never.
06 · 2026-09-27
Symbol Sharding RFC We Hand Clients Before Earnings Floods
The one-page RFC we attach to discovery when a client’s watchlist will face AMC floods.
07 · 2026-09-27
Feature Flags for Earnings Alert Banners
Banner config for event nights (MU, NKE) — flags, copy review, and no invented numbers.
08 · 2026-09-27
What Belongs in Discovery Before a Paper-Trading Sprint
Two weeks to name the data contract, the ledger, and the line we will not cross. Then a fixed price means something.
09 · 2026-09-26
Acceptance Tests for Watchlists Under AMC Bursts
Test plan language we put in work orders so ‘realtime’ means something on Micron night.
10 · 2026-09-26
Our Expo OTA Policy When Markets Move Overnight
Desk policy: OTA for JS/copy; store review for native. Overnight prints do not create exceptions.
11 · 2026-09-25
Observability When VIX Is Quiet and Single Names Are Loud
Dashboards we insist on: per-symbol latency, reconnect storms, JS hitches — especially in calm index weeks.
12 · 2026-09-22
Hire Notes: People Who Can Ship Paper-Trading Loops
How we staff sprints that look like Stock Picks — ledger honesty over demo chrome.
13 · 2026-09-20
Why We Only Do Fixed-Price Sprints
Hourly billing rewards slowness. Here's the alternative structure that keeps everyone honest.
14 · 2026-09-12
What We Learned Building a Paper Trading Platform
Market data contracts, ledger correctness, and why the boring parts are the hard parts.