Jennifer volk, anton naumenko
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The document discusses thredUP's engineering culture and practices. It emphasizes building a culture of learning, speed, and scaling quickly. Key aspects of thredUP's engineering culture include favoring people over processes, generalist full-stack engineers over specialists, overcommunication in small asynchronous teams, dynamic teams without hierarchy, and prioritizing tempo over quality. The goal is for full-cycle product development engineers to work in small teams with a mindset of speed.
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Jennifer volk, anton naumenko
- 1. Product Engineering Culture Build, Learn, Scale Fast October 2018
- 2. Anton Naumenko Largest Online Consignment Store ● $130M+ Invested ● 1000+ Employees ● 5 Distribution Centers Director of Engineering at thredUP Co-founder & CTO at Syndicode Ph.D. on Semantic Web Senior Product Manager at thredUP Product Lead at Google Harvard Business School & Claremont McKenna College Jenn Volk
- 4. THE THREDUP ECOSYSTEM ● Convenient Pre-Paid Bag ● Earn Cash or Donate ● Do Good ● Amazing prices ● Wide assortment ● Fresh selection everyday
- 5. THE THREDUP ECOSYSTEM Marketplace growth challenge re:made re:made
- 7. THREDUP Project case UPcycle program Partnership platform ● Custom experience ● CashOut to partner credit ● 2 engineers ● 1 partner in 1 month ● 3 partners by 2018 end
- 8. THREDUP Project case ● 1 engineer operations team ● 2 engineers shopping team ● 1 month
- 9. THREDUP Project case Automation for unique item distribution center Proof-of-concept proto ● 1 engineer ● 1 vendor ● 4 months Production ready ● 1 engineer ● 1 vendor ● 12 months
- 10. ThredUP Core Values Engineering practices
- 11. CULTURE IN THREDUP Core values ● SpeakUP We all learn from those around us, but it’s hard to learn if people are not willing to speakUP and share what they have to say. ● Influence outcomes How did you make an impact or a difference on the slice of the world you were in at the time? ● Seek the truth First principle thinking encourages continuous innovation and creative problem-solving by reducing bias and faulty reasoning. ● Infinite learning Every day is an opportunity to learn, an opportunity to teach and, just as importantly, an opportunity to forget. ● Transparency When we all know what’s up and what’s happening, it’s a whole lot easier to make the best decisions moving forward. ● Think Big Imagine the world as it could be, not as it is.
- 12. CULTURE IN THREDUP Engineering controversial decisions ● People vs. Process ● Generalist vs. Specialist ● Over communication vs. Communication overload ● Dynamic team vs. Hierarchy ● Tempo vs. Quality
- 13. People vs. Process Engineering practices
- 14. PEOPLE VS. PROCESS Waves of innovation The Natural Advantage of Nations: Business Opportunities, Innovations and Governance in the 21st Century
- 15. PEOPLE VS. PROCESS Learn to love change A startup is a temporary organization in search of a scalable, repeatable, profitable business model. Steve Blank and Bob Dorf. The Startup Owner’s Manual, K&S Ranch, 2012 … organizations of the future will likely be those that can move faster, adapt more quickly, learn more rapidly ... The organization of the future: Arriving now, Deloitte, 2017 Global Human Capital Trends Source: https://www2.deloitte.com/insights/us/en/focus/human-capital-trends/2017/organization-of-the-future.html
- 16. PEOPLE VS. PROCESS Processes squeeze talent TALENTED PEOPLE REGULATIONS PROCESSES LESS TALENTED PEOPLE
- 17. Generalist vs. Specialist Engineering practices
- 18. FRONTEND BACKEND FULL-STACK GENERALIST VS. SPECIALIST Full-stack software engineer
- 19. FRONTEND BACKEND FULL-STACK GENERALIST VS. SPECIALIST Full-cycle software engineer
- 20. FRONTEND BACKEND FULL-STACK GENERALIST VS. SPECIALIST Full-cycle product development engineer
- 21. GENERALIST VS. SPECIALIST Business-savvy Full-cycle product development engineer? THINK LAUNCH GROWREINVENT EXIT LIFE CYCLE ● CAC ● LTV ● P&L ● Gross vs. net ● Margin expansion vs. revenue growth ● Profit vs. revenue ● Valuation
- 22. Small teams with over communication Engineering practices
- 23. SMALL ASYNC TEAMS WITH OVER COMMUNICATION Over-communication vs. communication overload 70+ engineers 5 countries 7 time zones Responsible Accountable Consulted Informed Engineering Product Management Operations Creative Marketing Executive Team Customer Service Partner engineering teams
- 24. SMALL ASYNC TEAMS WITH OVER COMMUNICATION Async vs. sync communication 70+ engineers 5 countries 7 time zones ● Unblock your work for tomorrow today ● Set expectations upfront ● If blocked or unclear - execute your power, make your own judgement, just do it, you can fix it later
- 25. Dynamic teams vs. Hierarchy Engineering practices
- 26. DYNAMIC TEAMS VS. HIERARCHY Areas of Expertise vs. Areas of Responsibility ENG PM MARKETING OPS CS EXEC CREATIVE ● Business KPIs define team structure ● No director - subordinate relations ● Cross-team communication
- 27. DYNAMIC TEAMS VS. HIERARCHY Self-managed vs. Controlled ✗ Hierarchy ✗ Approval boards ✗ Accountability ✓ Lean team ✓ Fast decision making ✓ Pro-active ownership
- 28. Tempo vs. quality Engineering practices
- 29. Tempo vs. Quality Risk Driven Development vs. Plan and Execute What’s the smallest thing we can do to test our riskiest assumption?
- 30. Entire engineering team builds, learns, scales fast One slow decision creates a bullwhip effect in the organization Tempo vs. Quality Slow decisions create bullwhip effect
- 31. Tempo vs. Quality Quick and dirty vs. clean and solid We have scarce resources and many hypothesis to learn ● Embrace a willingness to fail and learn ● Come up with scrappy solutions to validate value hypothesis ● Consolidate towards growth hypothesis with more investment
- 33. OUR RECIPE Engineering controversial decisions ● People vs. Process ● Generalist vs. Specialist ● Over communication vs. Communication overload ● Dynamic team vs. Hierarchy ● Tempo vs. Quality
- 34. FRONTEND BACKEND FULL-STACK OUR RECIPE Full-cycle product development engineers in small teams with tempo mindset
- 35. Anton Naumenko Open positions ● Full stack engineers ● Senior ML engineers ● Senior DE engineers https://www.thredup.com/p/careers Director of Engineering at thredUP Co-founder & CTO at Syndicode Ph.D. on Semantic Web Senior Product Manager at thredUP Product Lead at Google Harvard Business School & Claremont McKenna College Jenn Volk
Editor's Notes
- Jenn
- Value proposition
- Complexity / dynamics of the marketplace and main challenge to sync supply, demand, capacity, and profitability in time Sell to both sides of the marketplace at the same time Synchronize the capacity expansion so that you have the right amount of buyers for suppliers, right amount of suppliers for buyers
- Anton
- Maybe screenshots of media coverage
- Remade might be under embargo and we cannot publicly talk details. However we can check what was told publicly before. If we cannot use that we can go with Goody Boxes story
- Complexity / dynamics of the marketplace
- Optimization of budget Main optimization channels
- Anton: People vs. Process, Generalist vs. specialist Jenn: small teams, tempo vs. quality
- Not sure if this is the best graphic as if the primary focus is process and not talent, the "No Talent" is actually a right outer join in this venn diagram. This diagram almost makes it look like we want zero process, which also isn't true. Lightweight processes that enable velocity with stability for talented engineers is the message we want to convey, right?
- Limit noise by using RACI, don't have meetings with 15 people 70+ engineers, daily scrum by project, slack channel, distributed team Upcycle example France, Serbia, Mexica, DCs
- Limit noise by using RACI, don't have meetings with 15 people 70+ engineers, daily scrum by project, slack channel, distributed team Upcycle example France, Serbia, Mexica, DCs Get all your questions answered you need to remain unblocked tomorrow before you end your day Communicate clearly what and how you plan to do things upfront If still blocked or unclear - execute your power, make your own judgement, just do it, you can fix it later
- Partner program: core team included partnership, marketing, creative Upfront Offers: core team included eng, data science, design Areas of expertise not responsibility Roadmap defines team Shuffle teams to reach business goals no director-subordinate relations
- There’s a reason we’ve stayed lean → Architectural board for approval processes, regulation Ownership versus accountability. ... Managers hold employees accountable by building accountabilityactions into their daily schedule, such as providing timely feedback and measuring progress toward goals. But ownership is not something that managers can demand. It's intrinsic, rather than extrinsic likeaccountability.
- What’s the smallest thing we can do to test our riskiest assumption? https://hackernoon.com/the-mvp-is-dead-long-live-the-rat-233d5d16ab02 https://mvpworkshop.co/validate-riskiest-assumption/ https://www.mindtheproduct.com/2017/08/innovation-broken-janice-fraser/ https://blog.leanstack.com/the-artist-and-the-innovator-e6b4888c5869
- Do you prefer quick and dirty or clean and well tested solution? I ask this question on almost all intro calls with candidates. Many adapt their answer like “it depends” rambling about “in some case quick and dirty, but personally I like clean code and embrace TDD”. Eeeee. Wrong answer. Decide where you are on this scale. We decided even on exec level that we value tempo more than quality. We can tolerate and fix dirty solutions, but we cannot tolerate slow decision making, delays in communication, slow product development. People look new jobs because they are often bored on current job, Did they try to make their work at least double faster - I doubt they would be bored. Validate the value hypothesis first in the least disruptive way, and then consolidate towards the growth hypothesis, which requires more investment in tech. The challenge we face over here is to make the right design and architecture choices upfront so work doesnt become too hard if the product-line works (its happened many times)
- Anton: People vs. Process, Generalist vs. specialist Jenn: small teams, tempo vs. quality