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Engineering blog post (how we built it) template

For a launch, a migration, an outage write-up or a performance win. Origin: The house style of engineering blogs at Stripe, Netflix, Cloudflare and Slack: a technical narrative from problem to result, written for engineers outside the company.

Start from this templateFree, no account needed. The blank is written with guidance in each section, ready to fill in.

Sections

  1. Hook (the problem in one paragraph)
  2. Context and constraints
  3. What we tried first
  4. The approach
  5. Results with numbers
  6. What we would do differently
  7. Where this goes next

How a tough reader scores it

When you score a draft against this format, the Critic evaluates this engineering blog post. The weights add up to 100; the fixes for the weakest criteria arrive as cards in the editor.

CriterionWeight
The opening states a real problem and a stake in the first paragraph15
Technical decisions are explained with the alternatives that were rejected20
Results are measured, with the method and the before state20
Readable by an engineer outside the company, jargon glossed, no internal names15
Honest about what went wrong or remains unsolved15
Structure carries the reader from problem to result without detours10
Length fits the story, 1,500 to 2,500 words5

How it works in SecondPen.ai

Open the template and the editor writes the blank once, with a line of guidance under each heading that you delete as you fill it in. Write your abstract and the editor names the format it reads like. Ask for a document with a slash command and it offers to start from the matching format. When the draft is ready, the Critic scores it against the criteria above, the way this format's toughest reader would, and the three highest-leverage fixes become Editor cards.

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