How to Ship Faster with Feature Flags: Insights from Unleash

Still freezing code before Black Friday and hoping nothing breaks? Feature flags can help you ship smaller, safer changes continuously—without the “big bang” risk or painful rollbacks. Cory O’Daniel talks with Unleash VP of Marketing Michael Ferranti about how modern teams use flags as a core delivery primitive alongside CI/CD and trunk-based development. They dig into kill switches for instant mitigation, progressive rollouts tied to real metrics, and why homegrown “if-statement” systems turn into hidden platforms you didn’t mean to build. They also cover the rising volume of AI‑assisted code and how flags provide the control layer to move faster while protecting reliability. What you’ll learn: How feature flags reduce risk for high-stakes periods like Black Friday by avoiding code freezes When to replace staging queues with progressive delivery and experiment-driven rollouts Practical uses: kill switches, trunk-based development, targeting, and cleanup strategies to manage flag debt Build vs. buy: why DIY flag systems become costly and how Unleash’s open source and on-prem options fit regulated or air‑gapped needs Using business, engineering, and customer signals to automate safe…