Building a strong and explicit engineering culture

For an engineering team to thrive and evolve, it has to stand on clear core values and principles. Often times, these are implicit and shared only organically. This can be a problem as the team grows.

In this presentation, we’ll take a look at a few principles on which engineering teams can lean on to achieve excellence in building amazing software while developing themselves and scale at the same time.

Transcript

1. Building a strong and explicit engineering culture. Rémi Prévost · Mirego ConFoo 2022
2. Rémi Prévost Partner & Director, Technologies @ Mirego
4. Engineering culture.
5. Culture. 📚 Wikipedia definition Culture is defined as “what is common to a group of people” and “what brings it together”, what is learned, passed on, produced and created.
6. Engineering. Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design, build and control structures, machines and other technical or industrial installations. 📚 Wikipedia definition
7. Engineering culture. 🙋 My definition The principles upon which an organization or a team aligns its vision and its decisions regarding its engineering practices—both human and technical.
8. Organic and implicit.
9. Abstract values. Concrete principles.
10. Principles 📍 The importance of milestones. 🥘 The importance of the recipe. 🗺 The importance of autonomy. ✊ The importance of ownership. 🔬 The importance of consistency. 🌿 The importance of patience. 🚂 The importance of communities. 🥯 The importance of the craft.
11. 📍 The importance of milestones. Writing code → Shipping code
12. 🥘 The importance of the recipe. Perfecting our way of doing things
13. 🗺 The importance of autonomy. Rules vs. guidelines
14. ✊ The importance of ownership. Individual ownership + team ownership
15. 🔬 The importance of consistency. Clever code vs. maintainable code.
16. 🌿 The importance of patience. Encouraging the act of not writing code
17. 🚂 The importance of communities. Not just importing code—other things around it too
18. 🥯 The importance of the craft. It’s OK to care about this stuff
19. Principles 📍 The importance of milestones. 🥘 The importance of the recipe. 🗺 The importance of autonomy. ✊ The importance of ownership. 🔬 The importance of consistency. 🌿 The importance of patience. 🚂 The importance of communities. 🥯 The importance of the craft.
20. 📝 Explicitness “We’re doing it this way because it’s how we’ve always done it.”
21. 👥 Team ”Do we have an implicit engineering culture?” “Are there things we do the same way most of the time?” “Do we have a reason for how we do things?”
22. 🚀 Evolution “Are we still aligned with our values and principles?” “Are we saying we do something a certain way… but end up ignoring it most of the time?”
23. Engineering culture. “Explicit & known” “Built as a team” “Evolving by reflecting on how and why”
24. Thank you! @remi · www.mirego.com