Engineer's Rigor
High quality software is carefully designed, implemented, tested, analyzed, and maintained. Such software evolves over the course of development through constant review and feedback from our peers and customers. The following details the core aspects of what engineering rigor looks like in practice.
Quality
Quality is woven into everything we do, and is the primary reason this collective was formed. We achieve high quality engineering through:
- Psychological Safety: Everyone on the team is respected where failures are reviewed blamelessly and are a chance to grow stronger together.
- Long Tail: The team is forward thinking where the work is a marathon instead of sprint where everyone has time to plan, research, refactor, implement, and work at a sustainable pace.
- Engineering Experience: The engineering experience is one such that anyone on the team can be onboarded and productive within an hour or less which means documentation is up-to-date, onboarding steps are automated, the test suite is easy to use, the build process is fast, and deployment to production requires minimal effort.
Communication
Mastering the written word allows you and colleagues to express ideas, think deeply about complex problems, and document architecture so others can ramp up quickly. Good communication means less interrupts, notifications, and meetings so we can accomplish more with the precious time we have.Ethics
We craft software that first causes no harm. Our code and business practices strive to make the right ethical choice for our collective, society, and the environment.
Inbox Zero
Inbox Zero ensures we stay focused on Getting Things Done. We deal with inputs by responding quickly, delegating as necessary, and/or scheduling larger projects into our queue so as not to distract from any tasks at hand.
Zero Bug Policy
No idea is hatched perfectly at inception, try as we might, so we have a low tolerance for bugs. If, or when, bugs crop up, they take top priority by fixing them as fast as possible before tackling other issues. Bugs are an early warning sign that, when left unattended, inevitably lead to complex and even catastrophic failures. Fixing bugs -- as a top priority -- keeps our software stack healthy, maintainable, and delights our customers because they can see we care due to being responsive.
Security
Security is often an after thought for others but, for us, is a primary focus and concern in everything we do by making it part of the engineering process.
Maintenance
"As an evolving program is continually changed, its complexity, reflecting deteriorating structure, increases unless work is done to maintain or reduce it." -- Meir M Lehman
"A lack of consistency keeps ordinary people from extraordinary results." -- Farnam Street
Building high quality software is only possible with a well maintained organization and codebase. For us, adhering to zero organizational and technical debt -- while enforcing consistency -- is an ingrained practice. We achieve this by being proactive rather than reactive in order to not fall behind software updates and security patches. Only with this level of diligence can we provide a work environment and code base that is enjoyable while yielding an outstanding work life and customer experience.