A deeper look at how design and engineering meet, overlap, and translate meaning — and why a shared language of making is the only way to build real shipping velocity.
Before we dive in, you can watch the original talk during Granola's Design Engineering Night #4 that inspired this piece. It’s up on YouTube if you want the live version.
The problem with two rails and one destination
I’ve always imagined design and engineering as two rails on the same track. They run in parallel, supposedly toward the same product, but they rarely sit at the same spot. Design debt on one side, tech debt on the other, shifting priorities somewhere ahead, and the occasional giant “wait what are we building again?” boulder in the middle.