Inspired by SpaceX's innovative software engineering practices, this cheat sheet summarizes actionable best practices to accelerate software delivery, ensure high reliability, and foster continuous improvement within your organization. For deeper insights and practical examples, refer to our full article here.
1. Lean & Agile Teams
Keep teams small, cross-functional, and empowered.
Minimize organizational layers; focus on direct responsibility and accountability.
2. Rapid Iteration & Continuous Delivery
Adopt continuous integration (CI) and continuous deployment (CD) to release frequent, incremental improvements.
Enable multiple deployments per day; automate the deployment pipeline fully.
3. Automated & Continuous Testing
Automate unit, integration, and end-to-end tests.
Use hardware-in-the-loop (HITL) testing where applicable.
Run regression tests continuously to catch issues early.
4. Modular Software Architecture
Structure software into reusable, modular components.
Develop a shared codebase to speed up development across multiple projects or products.
5. Fault Tolerance & Redundancy
Use redundancy strategies (e.g., triple redundancy) for mission-critical systems.
Implement fault detection and recovery paths proactively in software.
6. Failure as Learning
Embrace failures in testing phases; each failure provides valuable insights.
Quickly identify issues, learn from them, and iterate improvements rapidly.
7. Simulation & Virtualization
Leverage realistic simulations to validate software before deployment.
Use virtualization and containerization to create repeatable testing environments.
8. Telemetry & Monitoring
Collect detailed telemetry and metrics from software in real-time.
Use data-driven insights to inform future software improvements and updates.
9. Canary Deployments
Deploy updates incrementally to smaller segments (canaries) before full-scale rollout.
Monitor closely to identify issues early and minimize risk.
10. Culture of Ownership & DevOps
Encourage engineers to own features end-to-end, from design through deployment.
Integrate development, testing, and operational responsibilities into unified roles.
Leverage these proven strategies to build software faster, safer, and smarter, just like SpaceX!