Lessons from Scale #4: Workflow Orchestration Is a Product Surface

For a long time, I treated workflow orchestration as plumbing. Important plumbing, sure, but still plumbing. Something you install, test once, and then politely forget about while you move on to the “ real” problems. As long as data showed up where it was supposed to and nobody was paging you at 2 a.m., the orchestration layer could stay safely out of sight, like pipes in the wall. This worldview…