Beyond the Terminal: Why You Should Care About Systems Thinking

I usually write about specific engineering problems—how to optimize CI pipelines, how to manage AI context, or how to build tools that actually work. But today, I want to step back from the terminal for a moment.

Engineering is rarely just about code. It’s about understanding incentives, feedback loops, and how complex systems behave under pressure. A few months ago, a colleague of mine, Adam Korga—a pseudonym he’s quite open about on his site—introduced me to a way of thinking that bridges the gap between hard engineering and the “softer” sciences. He doesn’t write about code or architecture in the traditional sense, though having worked with him for several years, I’ve seen firsthand that he definitely could.

He’s been running a blog, newsletter, and book series that applies systems thinking and interdisciplinary approaches to IT. It’s the kind of content that makes you stop and ask: What does civil engineering have to do with cloud infrastructure? or How can medical principles like triage and patient stabilization be applied to a DevOps team? Ever wondered about that? Me neither. But Adam writes about it regularly.

I’ve been reading his work, and it’s a masterclass in breaking down complex failure patterns.

The Fuckup Almanac

Adam’s latest project, Fuckup Almanac, is a deep dive into failures in IT and adjacent industries. It’s not just a collection of war stories; it’s a structured study of how systems actually work… and break.

The first volume focuses on the foundations: bits, logic, data, and redundancy. What I like about his approach is the balance. He’s incredibly cynical—which is a prerequisite for any good SRE or infra engineer—but he couples that with an obsession for clarity. He leads the reader by the hand through failure patterns, showing not just what broke, but why the mechanics of the system made that failure inevitable.

Why this matters

The book isn’t just for junior engineers or curious outsiders. It’s for anyone who wants to move beyond “that’s a bug” and start thinking about “that’s a systemic vulnerability.”

He has a second volume on the way, and having had an early look, it’s even more compelling. In it, he shifts focus away from pure infrastructure to explore how software is actually produced. He moves beyond simple code reviews or architectural diagrams, instead pulling on the threads of underlying dependencies, human incentives, and the structural root causes of development failures. When he writes about AI, it reads less like a math paper and more like a study in behavioral psychology.

What really convinced me to share this, though, is the rigor. In a space filled with “thought leadership” fluff, Adam actually cites his sources. The bibliography for both volumes is fully available on his site, which is the kind of evidence-based engineering I respect.

The Absurdity of IT

If you need a break from the rigorous systems thinking, there is the IT Dictionary. It’s an entirely different beast. This is pure, unadulterated satire, holding a distorted mirror to the industry we work in. You won’t find systems theory here, but you will find a direct hit on the absurdities we all live with but rarely discuss out loud. It’s the kind of content that makes you laugh because it hits just a little too close to home.

Where to start

You don’t have to take my word for it. If you want to see how he dissects a problem, check out his breakdown of post-mortems. It’s a great example of the clarity he brings to his writing.

• Check out his blog: adamkorga.com/blog
• Join his newsletter: adamkorga.com/newsletter for weekly dispatches—even more direct and candid than the blog.
• Read the first chapter of his book: The Anatomy of a Post-Mortem

If you’re looking to sharpen your systems thinking or just want to understand why your infrastructure breaks in such predictable ways, I highly recommend adding his work to your reading list.