When engineers discuss architecture, the conversation usually revolves around code organisation. Everyone agrees that structure is better than chaos, and principles such as SOLID help us create components that are isolated, predictable, reusable, and easy to test. All of this is true, yet it covers only half of what genuinely shapes the trajectory of a software project.
There is another aspect of architecture that rarely receives attention. It is not about class hierarchies or dependency boundaries. It is about speed. About how fast a team can ship functionality. And ultimately, it is this aspect that determines whether a product evolves steadily or becomes progressively harder to maintain.
To understand this, it helps to change the lens. Imagine the entire product as a barrel that the team fills with features. Every delivered story is another bucket of water poured into it. It feels obvious that, as the team works, the barrel should gradually fill.
But architecture is not only the shape of the barrel. It is also the collection of small openings that allow water to escape. These openings are not visible on diagrams. They do not show up in code reviews. The code can look clean, follow SOLID, and still quietly drain the team’s productivity day after day.
This is the part of architecture we rarely discuss.
Why SOLID Cannot Protect You from Productivity Loss
SOLID and similar principles help structure individual parts of a codebase. They make components easier to reason about in isolation. But they say nothing about what happens across the entire system.
You can apply SRP diligently, write elegant components and embrace clean code practices, yet still end up with a project that moves slowly and becomes increasingly brittle.
The problem is not poor code quality. The problem is that behaviour which should be centralised ends up scattered.
One table filters data one way, another paginates differently, a third handles errors with its own interpretation of the rules. Individually these choices look harmless. Collectively they become architectural openings that steadily drain team capacity.
The Real Effect of Architecture: The Economics of Engineering
If we look at architecture not as a stylistic choice but as an economic system that governs the flow of delivered value, everything becomes clearer.
What matters is not how pretty a component looks in the editor. What matters is how many openings the architecture introduces, and how much effort escapes through them every day.
More openings mean slower delivery regardless of team talent.
Fewer openings mean the team can move faster even if the code is not perfect everywhere.
This is why architecture should be seen as an economic decision, not merely a technical one.
React as a “Gifted” Architecture – And Why That Isn’t Enough
React gives teams a strong starting point. Components, state, declarative UI, predictable data flow. It creates an impression that the architecture is already solved.
This is a common misconception.
React indeed defines the form in which UI code is written, but it does not define the architecture of the system. The presence of components often leads teams to assume they simply need to create more of them. So they produce OrdersTable, UsersTable, InvoicesTable and countless variants for similar screens. The components are short, sometimes only a few lines, so it feels harmless.
Yet each of these tiny components becomes another architectural opening. Another place where behaviour diverges. Another future inconsistency. Another regression waiting to surface.
Organisational complexity grows silently.
The Anti-Pattern: Many Small Components Instead of One Smart Component
A typical React project contains numerous versions of tables, filters and forms. They look similar yet behave differently. And this difference grows as the product evolves.
Instead of consolidating behaviour into a single, fully capable Smart Component, teams create dozens of variants that all carry fragments of logic. The system becomes harder to change, harder to test and harder to understand.
This is where productivity is lost long before anyone notices.
How Smart Components Close Architectural Openings
SaaS systems are built on repeating patterns. Forms with validation. Tables with filtering, sorting and pagination. Lists with bulk operations. Detail screens. Editing flows.
A Smart Component is created when we gather all scenarios for a given pattern and implement them in one place. For example, instead of dozens of table variations, we define a single Smart Table that contains everything the system may need. Not every screen uses all its capabilities, but they are built in and can be enabled or disabled through configuration.
This shifts the work from “building another table” to “configuring the table for this use case”. It also shifts the architecture from scattered logic to a single point of consistency and control.
Because one Smart Component underpins many screens, it can be tested rigorously and improved centrally. The risk of defects drops dramatically, and changes in business rules become faster and safer.
Where Exactly Productivity Is Lost
To understand why this matters, we must be explicit about how productivity drains away.
The first obvious loss is defects. When logic is duplicated, every variation becomes a potential failure point. A missing validation rule here, an inconsistent filter there. Smart Components eliminate this fragmentation and ensure that fixes are applied once and benefit the entire system.
The second loss is QA effort. Testing is part of the project’s cost, and fragmented components multiply the amount of work. Every small variation requires additional scenarios, regression checks and retesting. With Smart Components, most testing is concentrated in the component itself rather than repeated across dozens of screens.
The third loss is cognitive load. When logic is scattered, developers must jump between multiple files, remember subtle differences and compare implementations. A task that should take two hours can easily expand to two days.
The fourth loss concerns change management. Updating business rules in a fragmented system requires touching many parts of the codebase. Estimates grow, uncertainty increases, and teams become reluctant to change anything. A Smart Component system turns these wide-scale changes into focused updates.
The fifth loss is onboarding. New engineers must understand a maze of small, inconsistent components rather than learning a few core architectural elements. This reduces team resilience and increases turnover costs.
Taken together, these factors shape the true economics of a project: slower delivery, higher defect rates, larger QA cycles and a less predictable roadmap.
Smart Components as the Foundation of a Productive Architecture
React provides the form of components, but it does not define the architecture. Architecture emerges when a team intentionally creates a set of Smart Components at the right level of abstraction, concentrates complexity and reduces structural duplication.
With fewer architectural openings, systems become easier to maintain, defects are reduced, QA effort is focused, and teams gain significantly more predictable delivery velocity.
This is not about fashionable engineering ideas.
It is about clear thinking, solid structure and an architecture that supports the product rather than draining it.