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In particular if you have to build on existing systems, a top-down approach doesn’t always work well, because the overall design may well depend on details of the existing parts you have to integrate with. In that case, starting with prototyping a vertical slice of the functionality can be the better approach.

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Exactly. I've found that even with a greenfield project, there is the tension between keeping things simple and avoiding fully-engineering code so as to quickly get to an MVP, and the fact that code that is under-engineered is creating technical debt that becomes more ossified the more you build on top of it.

My current thinking on a solution to this conundrum is this: try to craft the best architecture and engineering you can up-front _vertically_, but drastically reduce the workload by paring things down _horizontally_.

Indeed, this seems to be the insight around vertical slice architecture? https://www.jimmybogard.com/vertical-slice-architecture/

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