Articles/Built In

Published on Built In

Richard Ewing's articles on Built In — the leading platform for startup and tech company culture, covering engineering team economics, developer productivity, and scaling strategies.

Built In reaches 3M+ tech professionals monthly across 8 metro markets.

🛡️

Your AI Agent Needs a Kill Switch

The common approach to AI agent security is based on guardrails that amount to guesses. A real security program needs rigid rules, not probabilistic predictions.

AI SecurityKill Switch ProtocolDeterministic ControlAgentic AI
📈

Revenue Per Engineer: The Metric Your Board Should Track

Why APER is the missing link between engineering investment and business results. How top companies measure engineering productivity.

APEREngineering ProductivityRevenue Per EngineerBoard Metrics
👥

The True Cost of a Bad Hire in Engineering

Quantifying the total cost of a mis-hire in engineering: salary, onboarding, ramp time, team disruption, and the technical debt they leave behind.

Cost Per HireEngineering ROITeam ScalingHiring Economics

Why Your Engineering Team Is Slower Than You Think

The maintenance load trap: how invisible infrastructure work consumes 40-80% of engineering capacity. How to measure and reclaim wasted velocity.

Maintenance LoadFeature VelocityEngineering CapacityInvisible Work

Work With Richard

Scale your engineering organization with evidence-based economics. R&D Capital Audits quantify engineering investment returns for boards and investors.

Book Advisory →