Tooling Matters After 8 years as a software engineer, across startups and established companies, I’ve seen firsthand how much good tooling can impact productivity, onboarding, and code quality. Tooling is not just about convenience—it’s about enabling teams to move faster, reduce errors, and focus on solving real problems. Why Tooling is Critical Onboarding Speed: How quickly can a new engineer get a working environment and start contributing? The best teams make this nearly instant, with clear setup scripts, containerized environments, and automated checks.