"What does "craftsmanship" mean in software, beyond clean code?"

It means caring about whether the thing actually works for real people, not just whether it compiles.

Clean code is part of it. But I've seen beautifully architected systems that were terrible products. And I've seen messy codebases that solved real problems elegantly.

What Craftsmanship Means

Knowing when rules help and when they don't Every "best practice" has a context. Applying them blindly is cargo cult, not craft.

Building for the people who'll maintain it That includes future you, six months from now, when you've forgotten why you made that decision.

Making intentional tradeoffs Not "we cut corners because we were rushed" but "we chose to optimize for X at the expense of Y because Z."

Caring about the details that matter Not obsessing over indentation. Caring about error messages that actually help users. Performance that doesn't frustrate people. Security that protects their data.

Knowing when to ship and when to wait Shipping broken software isn't craftsmanship. But neither is endlessly polishing something nobody's using yet.

The Balance

Craftsmanship is the opposite of both "move fast and break things" and "everything must be perfect."

It's thoughtful work that balances speed with quality, knowing that quality means "works well for real people" not "meets some abstract standard."