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Case study Own product · Engineering platform Built and used by Maksym Shpak

Rune — engineering decisions backed by experiments.

I built Rune to make rigorous engineering practical throughout product development. It supports research, implementation, automated checks, and cross-model review — while I remain responsible for the technical decisions and the final result.

Rune workspace showing completed development tasks and an approved spike
A working engineering workspace: requirements, implementation, and research decisions in one place. Actual Rune interface; visible text translated from Ukrainian for this presentation.

1

Comparing implementations through experiments

During a technical spike, I can build several implementations of the same component, measure them under identical load, and choose the one that best fits the requirements.

The criteria come from the task: correctness, latency, throughput, resource use, operational complexity. The winner is rarely “the fastest” — it’s the option whose trade-offs the product can live with.

Illustrative example of the process. Four candidates is an example, not a fixed number; the marks are not measured results.
Criterion · same load A B C chosen D
CorrectnessMeetsMeetsMeetsFails edge case
LatencyMisses targetBestWithin targetWithin target
ThroughputWithin targetBestWithin targetWithin target
Resource useLowHighModerateLow
Operational complexityLowNew infrastructure to runLowLow

In this example, B is the fastest but adds infrastructure the team would have to operate; C meets every requirement at a cost the team can sustain. The decision and its evidence go into the pull request.

A real decision

Comparing documentation architectures

In Rune’s own documentation spike, two approaches were compared across file budgets, preservation of measurements, and content organization. The final decision selected A-v5. This is a qualitative architecture comparison, separate from the illustrative performance scenario above.

Comparison of two documentation architectures and their trade-offs
The recorded comparison explains what changes with each choice, rather than presenting a score without context. Actual Rune interface; visible text translated from Ukrainian for this presentation.

2

Testing behavior under failure

With Rune, I can develop simulation and fault-injection tests for the failures a specific system is likely to meet — and check what it does next.

These are examples of tests we design for a particular system. They show how it behaves under the failures we model; they are not a built-in guarantee or proof that a system has no bugs.

Retries and duplicate events
Deliver the same event more than once. Check that state changes exactly once.
Idempotency
Repeat a request with the same key. Check for one effect and a consistent response.
Interrupted operations
Stop a process mid-operation. Check that it resumes or rolls back cleanly.
Redis unavailable
Take the cache away under load. Check that the system degrades without corrupting data.
Database outage
Drop the database mid-transaction. Check for no partial writes and a clean reconnect.
Recovery and data integrity
Restart after a failure. Check that state reconciles with the source of truth.

3

A controlled path from task to pull request

AI does a large share of the research and implementation. It doesn’t decide what gets built or what ships. I define the constraints, review the evidence, and accept the result — nothing reaches a pull request without that.

  1. 01

    Task

    I define

  2. 02

    Research and requirements

    Rune researches

  3. 03

    Approved plan

    I approve

  4. 04

    Implementation

    Rune builds

  5. 05

    Automated checks and cross-model review

    Rune verifies

  6. 06

    Human acceptance

    I accept

  7. 07

    Pull request

    With the evidence attached

Ten implementation parts with their commit identifiers and change counts
An actual workflow improvement delivered in ten parts. These are implementation milestones, not a clean final review: the task was accepted with an outstanding major finding for shipped-worker and host checks. Actual Rune interface; visible text translated from Ukrainian for this presentation.

What it means for your project

Built to support my work with clients.

Decisions you can inspect

Key technical choices come with the alternatives considered and the evidence behind them.

Failure behavior checked early

We model relevant failure scenarios and test recovery behavior before release.

One accountable engineer

AI extends what I can check. The judgment, and responsibility for the result, stay with me.

Discuss your product.

Tell me what you’re building, where it stands, and the technical problem in front of you. I’ll reply with the main risks I see and what I’d test first.

Contact me on Upwork ↗ Message me on LinkedIn ↗