Thoughts and ideas on building a great engineering culture for software development teams

1. Building a Great
Engineering Culture
SIMON GUEST
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2. Why care about culture?
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3. Five Tenets of Great Engineering Culture
▸ Work/Life Balance
▸ Community
▸ Personal Development
▸ Communication
▸ Team Structure
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4. Work/Life Balance
▸ Work hard when you need to, but don’t burn out
▸ Adopt a flexible work schedule - but be still driven by results
▸ Take time to celebrate success before moving on to the next thing
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5. Community
▸ Embrace open source in everything you do
▸ Realize that the community is larger than just you or your team
▸ When you learn something new, take time to give back
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6. Personal Development
▸ Invest in the hardware, software, equipment, education and training
required for success
▸ Stay curious, being willing to see change as a chance to grow, and
helping others develop
▸ Support lateral moves within groups and teams to help build
different skills
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7. Communication
▸ Be open and transparent with each other, recognizing differences,
but building trust by being honest and authentic
▸ Support saying “no” to things that don't make sense
▸ Don't be afraid to fail - as long as you fail fast, and fail as a team
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8. Team Structure
▸ Each team should be responsible for their own destiny - each of
which with an infectious passion for the customer
▸ Individuals should be measured on their contribution to the team -
not individual contribution or heroics
▸ "Managers" should still write code a good percentage of the time
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9. Thank you!ME@SIMONGUEST.COM
@SIMONGUEST
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