Crisis Engineering

WHEN THE SYSTEM BREAKS, WHAT DO YOU DO?

You’re in the middle of a meltdown. The platform is down, the phones are ringing, the headlines are brutal, and your team is looking to you for answers. The usual playbooks—careful planning, expert consultation, bold strategy—aren’t working. In fact, they might be making things worse.

What if we told you that this is your moment to lead transformative change?

Crisis Engineering is your field guide to leading through the chaos—and coming out stronger. Drawing on decades of experience inside some of the most complex systems in government and industry, Mikey Dickerson, Marina Nitze, and Matthew Weaver of Layer Aleph reveal a powerful, hands-on framework for navigating and transforming high-stakes crises. From the rescue of HealthCare.gov to wildfire response and pandemic logistics, this book offers real-world stories, practical tools, and hard-won insights into how complex systems fail—and how to help them recover. At its core is sensemaking: the invisible, human process that drives understanding, action, and ultimately, change.

You’ll learn: How to identify the 5 signals of a real crisis—and use them to create space for lasting reform Why traditional leadership instincts fail under pressure—and what to do instead How to rapidly converge on a shared version of reality in chaotic, high-visibility moments Why crises are not just disasters to survive, but rare opportunities for meaningful transformation Whether you’re in tech, government, healthcare, or any other critical system, Crisis Engineering gives you the mindset, tools, and vocabulary to lead with clarity and create lasting change when it matters most.

Author Biography

Marina Nitze is a partner in the crisis engineering firm Layer Aleph and co-author of HACK YOUR BUREAUCRACY. In addition to Layer Aleph, Marina is a fellow at New America’s New Practice Lab, where she works on improving America’s foster care system; her efforts have unlocked over $3B in cash payments each year to kin caregivers living below the poverty line, while eliminating significant administrative burden. Marina was the Chief Technology Officer of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs under President Obama, after serving as a Senior Advisor on technology in the Obama White House and as the first Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the U.S. Department of Education. She lives in Seattle, WA. Mikey Dickerson led the HealthCare.gov rescue, for which he was featured on the cover of TIME magazine. Afterwards, President Obama appointed him Deputy Chief Information Officer of the United States. Part of this involved Mikey’s work establishing the United States Digital Service (USDS) to bring America’s top technologists into government and solve its hardest and most pressing IT challenges. Mikey lives in Arizona.

Matthew Weaver was a founding member of the “SRE” discipline which now dominates technical operations worldwide, establishing SRE practices during his tenure leading global responsibility for the availability and continuity of Google’s search product in 2005-2009. He also spent several years at Fastly, improving the safety, performance, and resilience of the infrastructure – enabling them to handle the 800+ billion network requests they receive each day. He lives in rural Wisconsin.