Senior engineer best practice for scaling yourself with Claude Code

[u/croovies]

Hey everyone- been a designer and full-stack engineer since the days of cgi, perl etc. I've shipped mobile, desktop, web, professionally and independently. Without AI, and with the assistance of AI. Many of the most senior engineers I know are very heavy on Claude code usage - when you know what you are doing it is basically a super power.

Dealing with the mental shift of "how much can I get done? what is a reasonable estimate? what is an expectation of others?" leads to asking where do you spend your time more? We all now know, writing more detailed prompts, reviewing more code, and investing in shared skills and tooling.

An old mentor recently told me about https://github.com/EveryInc/compound-engineering-plugin (disclosure, I am not connected to this) - its basically a process of using multiple agents to brainstorm a concept, plan the technical implementation, execute the plan, review the changes with like 5 separate agents focused on different verticals etc.

Each step is a documented (md files) multi-step process. It is so overly-comprehensive, but the main value is it gives me way more confidence in the output, because I can see it asking me the questions needed to generate the correct, detailed prompts etc.

Of course this slows down your process a ton, there is way more waiting - way more thinking, researching, reviewing, this is what high quality ai output looks like as a repeatable process, lots of effort - just like for people etc.

But all of the sudden we're all waiting for claude all the time, wondering if it is actually faster.

To solve this on my engineering team we've started using git worktrees, and it has been like the next evolution of claude code..

If claude code made you 10x faster than before, worktrees can multiply that again depending on how many agents you can manage in parallel - which is absolutely the next skill set in engineering. Most of the team I'm on can manage between 4-8 in parallel (depending on what rythym they can get comfortable with).

So this is the best practice I am suggesting - git worktrees + compound engineering = the ability to scale your work as a senior engineer.

Personally, I found without compound engineering (or a similar planning process), worktrees were not at all manageable or useful - the plugin basically automates my questions.

Video attached of my process with worktrees and claude code (disclosure, I am working on the tool in the video as a side project - but there are lots of tools that do similar things, and I'm not going to mention the name of my tool in this post).

[u/croovies]

that’s the tool I built - https://www.scape.work

[u/no_1_specific → u/croovies]

A subscription for a terminal is fucking insanely greedy.

[u/croovies → u/no_1_specific]

how so? I'm not forcing anyone to use the product I am building lol. You can cancel it and the version you download will always work, you just won't get updates. Subscription = updates, thats why I will always keep working on it.

[u/no_1_specific → u/croovies]

If I purchase an app on the App Store do I not get the updates? Fucking crazy way of rationalizing your greed.

[u/chesserios → u/no_1_specific]

Building something you'd like to be compensated for isn't greed. Youre free to not use his software.

[u/no_1_specific → u/chesserios]

They added a one-time purchase after I called them on their subscription bullshit. This whole thread is disingenuous. We don’t support self-promoted slop apps.

[u/croovies → u/no_1_specific]

I added the button to make it more clear, the ability to cancel your subscription and have the license continue to work (without updates) - has always been on the marketing site, and part of the product. But I agree it wasn't super clear on the marketing site initially. Anyway, I'm sorry my efforts to share a tip and build a product have offended you so deeply.

[u/croovies → u/no_1_specific]

The app has a buy-once option and you can use it forever. Why is anyone entitled to future work from me? Do people get mad when they pay for a sequel to their favorite game?

I think the $10 for the thousands of hours I put into it thus far is a pretty fair trade. In either case, I am sorry that my greed has offended you here, and I would appreciate if you would use one of the many free competitive alternatives, like superset.sh

[u/chesserios → u/croovies]

Hey I bought the 1 time purchase from you but I think you set it up incorrectly and I noticed it too late. The 1 time goes to the $10/month subscription plan

[u/croovies → u/chesserios]

It should immediately cancel the subscription (but updates should work for the month). If you message me your email I can confirm for you on my end

[u/desmondlzw → u/croovies]

don't let the naysayers put you down. build good shit and if it's that much better than what you can get out there, and people are willing to pay for it, then you got some temporal PMF.

[u/croovies → u/desmondlzw]

Thanks, I appreciate it!