Product Operations & Intervention for SaaS Scaleups on Serenity | The intervention consultancy for struggling software teams

Energy Management Beats Time Management in Engineering

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

If you look at a standard burn-down chart or a timesheet, software development looks deceptively linear. One hour of coding equals one unit of output. If a project is falling behind, the “logical” management solution is to add more hours, ask the team to stay late, work a weekend, or squeeze in “just one more ticket” before the sprint closes. Or if you have the payroll, add more engineers.

But anyone who has actually written code knows this is a lie.

Ship Fast

Tue, 18 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

We’ve all felt the itch. You open a file to make a small change, and you’re immediately confronted with a mess. Maybe it’s legacy code that has overstayed its welcome, or an architectural pattern that creates friction every time you try to add a feature.

The instinct is to fix it. To overhaul the system until it is clean, modern, and “right.”

While this conscientiousness is a vital trait for senior engineers, there is a dangerous trap that lies between the urge to fix and the execution of that fix: The Big Bang Refactor.

Excellence is a Habit: Why Shipping Software Beats Perfection

Mon, 17 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The urge to “rewrite it all” is often disguised as a pursuit of excellence.

We’ve all seen the pattern. An engineer opens a file and becomes allergic to what they see. Maybe it’s messy legacy code, a “temporary” hack that is now celebrating its third birthday, or an architectural pattern that no longer fits the scale of the application.

The instinct is to fix it. To overhaul it. To make it clean, modern, and “right.” This is a good instinct! We should seek to improve things as we go, and developing that conscientiousness is vital for any senior engineer.

"Why Is Everything So Slow?", and how to fix it with Lead Time

Tue, 11 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Everything feels…slow. You have an idea, or a critical feature, or an urgent bug fix, but it takes forever to send it through the process. Half the time it feels like it’s not even going through the process, it just dies on someone’s desk. Vanishing into the black box for weeks or months is a silent killer, and it’s both frustrating and disrespectful for anyone who’s making requests/demands on an engineering team.

Why's Everything So Slow?

Tue, 11 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Does this feel familiar?

Everything feels… slow. You have a critical feature or an urgent bug fix, but it takes forever to get it through the process. Your engineering team feels crushed under a mountain of work, their calendars are full, their velocity charts look good, and they are busy.

But where are the results?

This disconnect, where “busy” doesn’t equal “delivery,” is one of the most frustrating and costly problems in software development. It’s a sign your company’s “ship” has a lot of little leaks.

Debt or Slop?

Fri, 11 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I once worked with a guy named Ev, who is quite possibly one of the most prolific yet worst programmers I’ve ever worked with. During a review of something he implemented, another guy on the team asked “Who is benefitting from all of this code? Are we trying to please the gods of programming by offering them a sacrifice of so many lines of code?”

Following up after him was demoralizing. His implementations were often done out of band and just sort of wedged into production. Most of his work had to be completely rewritten, and the replacement process took far longer than just doing it correctly the first time. Nearly everything else had to be decommissioned, often with apologies to the internal stakeholders and clients.

Tall Poppies and Rockstars

Mon, 07 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

We’ve all heard the term “rockstar developer.” For many, it conjures images of a reckless “cowboy coder”, a lone wolf who moves fast, breaks things, and leaves a trail of messy, unmaintainable code for the rest of the team to clean up.

The tech industry narrative has soured on this archetype, painting them as a short-term gain for a long-term headache. Many have even concluded that the true 10x developer is a myth, a cynical recruiting buzzword with no basis in reality.

Taste: In Defense of the Rockstar Programmer

Sun, 06 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Back in the early 2000s, tech recruiters got their talons on a new phrase: the “rockstar developer”. They’d heard of this mythical creature: the one who ships features at a dizzying pace, who can solve impossible problems overnight, who know exactly what to do.

Like most industry terms, it got twisted, overused, and turned into corporate-speak for someone who we all hate. Painting with a broad brush, you can conjure up images of the lone wolf, a “cowboy coder” who writes messy, unmaintainable code, disregards the team, and leaves a trail of technical debt in their wake. Nowadays, the narrative is that these developers are brilliant but reckless, a short-term gain for a long-term, high-interest loan you’ll be paying off for years. Or more often, people believe that it’s just hype and that the rockstar doesn’t exist, or is a liar.

Stay Focused, King

Sat, 07 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Focus is hard.

Building software is usually really intricate, but also fairly tedious. There are a lot of tools to help get past the tedium nowadays, but we tend to lose sight of the fundamentals in favor of what we feel like we should do. We copy what we see other admirable companies doing in the hope that their success will rub off onto our own process and we’ll see similar results.

You Aren't Gonna Need The Chaos Monkey

Sat, 07 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Years ago, Netflix, in a brilliant move of engineering resilience, created a tool that would deliberately and randomly shut down their own production servers, create havok in their network, and otherwise try to destabilize their infrastructure. The idea was simple, yet profound: if you know chaos is coming, you’re forced to build systems that can withstand it. They wrote a blog post about it, released the open-source code, and almost overnight, a new legend was born in the tech world.

Do You Need To Streamline Your Software?

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Your wife has a dream…

She wants to move to the country, away from the hustle and bustle of the city. After all, your kids need trees to climb, grass to roll around in, and dirt to throw in each other’s eyes.

You study Zillow like a textbook before a final exam. Finally, you find the perfect property: a three bedroom, two bath house on an acre of land. Offer made, offer accepted.

About Jordan Ambra

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’m Jordan Ambra, founder of Serenity.

Over the last 25 years, I’ve worked with over 350 SaaS companies as a coder, CTO, and founder.

I bridge the gap between “Business Needs” and “Developer Reality” because I speak both languages fluently. I tell founders and executives the uncomfortable truths hiding in their teams and software products, and I connect engineering teams with the business to deliver the best possible product.

How It Started

Age 12. I’m visiting my aunt. She brings me to the bookstore and says “Jordan, pick a book and I’ll buy it for you.” So naturally, I picked out a 600-page HTML book and read it three times.

Get Started

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Launchpad

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

I love building software. It’s fun, creative, and rewarding not just for its own sake, but because you can reach and help so many others.

The software I’ve written has been used by many millions of people, maybe even billions, and perhaps–even you!

The entrepreneurial “hit rate” is something like 5%. You never really know when something is going to take off, and it’s often not what you expect. Launching a second product after a successful first is also much more likely to be successful, probably because you know where to put your time (marketing and distribution!)

Privacy Policy

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Effective date: May 8, 2026

Serenity Software (“we”, “us”, “our”) offers a variety of applications and services. This policy describes how we collect, use, and protect your information across all of our applications and the serenity.software website (collectively, the “Services”). Your use of the Services is also governed by our Terms of Service.

Information We Collect

Account Information

When you create an account for any of our applications, we collect your email address and a securely hashed password. We do not store plaintext passwords.

Resources

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Scoop Recipe, Privacy Policy

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Last updated: May 8, 2026

Scoop Recipe is a Chrome extension that turns recipes you find online into a grocery list. This policy describes what Scoop does and does not do with your data. It is specific to the Scoop browser extension; for Serenity Software’s general privacy policy covering our account-based applications, see our main privacy policy.

What Scoop reads

When you click the Scoop icon on a recipe page, Scoop reads the contents of that page to extract recipe data (title, ingredients, servings, source URL). This happens locally in your browser. The page contents are not sent to any server operated by Scoop or Serenity Software.

Terms of Service

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Effective date: May 8, 2026

These terms govern use of the applications and services operated by Serenity Software (“we”, “us”, “our”), including the serenity.software website (collectively, the “Services”). By using any of our Services, you agree to these terms.

Account Registration

You must provide a valid email address and password to create an account. You are responsible for keeping your credentials secure and for all activity that occurs under your account.