Fairhelm Systems
Practice notes on data engineering, decision systems and governance.
Fairhelm · Decision systems
· 10 min read
Most dashboard disputes are not about the chart. They are about an undefined metric. Five fields that turn a KPI into a contract people can act on, and how to write them before anyone opens a charting tool.
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Fairhelm · Decision systems
· 10 min read
A dashboard that shows what is wrong but not who owns fixing it is a report. Why exceptions need a named owner, an age and a next step, and how to design the surface so ownership survives staff changes.
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Fairhelm · Data engineering
· 9 min read
A pipeline is not finished when data lands. It is finished when the people accountable for the numbers can prove they match the source. How to make reconciliation the definition of done.
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Fairhelm · Data engineering
· 8 min read
Streaming is not a maturity level and batch is not a compromise. A decision framework for picking how data moves, based on latency the decision actually needs, correctness, recovery and what the team can run at 2 a.m.
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Fairhelm · Governance
· 9 min read
Most systems log everything and explain nothing. An audit trail is for a principal, a finance head or an auditor, not for a database. How to design one that answers who, what, when, why and under whose authority, in plain language.
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Fairhelm · Company
· 7 min read
A small technology company can be a product company or a services company, but pretending to be both usually means being neither. The reasoning behind Fairhelm's scope, what it says no to, and what a selective engineering engagement looks like.
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