Building a Great Engineering Culture outlines five tenets of great engineering culture: work/life balance, community, personal development, communication, and team structure. It recommends embracing open source, giving back to the community, investing in continuous learning, being transparent and honest, supporting failure as long as teams learn from it, and measuring individuals based on their contribution to the team rather than heroics. Managers should still spend significant time coding.

1. Building a Great
Engineering Culture
SIMON GUEST
1

2. Why care about culture?
2

3. Five Tenets of Great Engineering Culture
▸ Work/Life Balance
▸ Community
▸ Personal Development
▸ Communication
▸ Team Structure
3

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
4

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
5

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
6

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
7

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
8

9. Thank you!ME@SIMONGUEST.COM
@SIMONGUEST
9