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Ask HN: Do you know other firms like Valve or GitHub?

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Re: Ask HN: Do you know other firms like Valve or GitHub?

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently spoke to a recruiter at Skyscanner, and he mentioned that they have also adopted a similar model to Spotify. He called the model "Squads and tribes".

I work for Skyscanner, and can confirm this. It's a very effective model for managing a business this size, and IMHO fosters innovation within the business. Very basic description of the model as it is at Skyscanner: Tribes - High level products (hotels, flights, car hire) Chapters - "Departments"; areas of expertise (data acquisition, front end) Squads - Autonomous project units (New features, development of an exis…

Just a minor correction :)

Guilds - Informal interest groups (Linux, Python, agile development)

Re: Ask HN: Do you know other firms like Valve or GitHub?

#43
post #38

Can anyone confirm that Github still operates this way?

Some LinkedIn job titles from current GitHub employees:

  * VP, Business Development & Services
  * Head of Technology Partnerships
  * CIO
  * VP, HR
  * Vice President, Strategy
  * Vice President, Marketing
  * VP Communications
  * Director of Outreach
  * Director of Sales

Re: Ask HN: Do you know other firms like Valve or GitHub?

#44
post #38

Can anyone confirm that Github still operates this way?

I'm not sure what others experiences are but for me it's mostly the same but also different in some ways than in the past. The biggest change is that there's more structure in some key places.

For instance there are a few PMs now for very involved projects, and we have engineering managers to make sure we're getting along ok and not falling between the cracks (turns out 100+ people reporting to one person can be tricky), but still remains enormously open.

Most decisions are made in the open (if they legally can be), there's almost always a Pull Request with discussion around it if you want to either take part or just see how that decision came around. The culture is pretty allergic to anything closed. People frequently ask for a URL if they're curious how a decision was made. This makes it much easier to not feel left out as a remote employee (which something like 60% are).

As an engineer I can largely still choose what I work on much in the same way as before: if there's a project spinning up and I want to work on that project and that team wants me and my team is cool with me going I can totally go work on it.

I've actually been encouraged to work on other things lately to get more perspective on the product and work with new people. I don't feel pigeonholed like I have in some other places.

Teams mostly self organize into structures that best work for them. Some teams look fairly traditional. Some use scrum. Some use some other agile methods. Some use nothing. Some work closely with a PM. etc. Use what makes you happy and what makes you productive. Different projects have different needs.

Things may shift around as growth happens (and they have), but largely I feel like the principles have stayed intact. Still the best place I've ever worked.

Re: Ask HN: Do you know other firms like Valve or GitHub?

#45
post #36

I feel like this describes my present employer. The company culture emphasizes that everyone should experience maximum Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose, Transparency, Empathy and Fun in their job. Hierarchy is way less important to us than getting results. We're in Toronto and we have more about this at our website: https://nulogy.com/

How is management structured? How are product decisions made?

Ah! Josh, your name was familiar to some of my coworkers!

A couple of points to answer your questions:

- We do centralize our product strategy and portfolio planning, but we decentralize our release and iteration planning.

- We focus on building strong teams of diverse talent sets that are becoming more self managing. Teamwork is big for us, flying solo on any task is rare-r than in other places I've worked.

- Our management (and everyone else) are really accessible for a medium sized company. I have faith that if I sent a calendar invite to our C*O for a 15 min chat on a free timeslot, they'd show up. Of course, respect goes both ways and I wouldn't book their time unless I really needed them specifically and it couldn't be handled asynchronously.

Thanks for the questions!

Re: Ask HN: Do you know other firms like Valve or GitHub?

#46
post #39

Not sure if it's in the same bucket as Valve or GitHub: at Mobile Jazz http://mobilejazz.com we're only 20 people (and that makes things a lot easier), but we've quite a different way of working compared to traditional companies: * We pay fair salaries. For most people in our team it's way more than what they've earned before. * We pay everyone the same (base) salary. Regardless of their role or title. * We pay quart…

Pretty amazing. Are the founders/management team working towards what might be considered a high rate of growth or an incremental one? In other words, is the staff level, revenue, expenses, and earnings in some way optimized at the current level? Kudos for focusing on your people- this mix is difficult to achieve for what I am assuming is a bootstrapped business and impossible in a venture-backed one.

Re: Ask HN: Do you know other firms like Valve or GitHub?

#47
post #39

Not sure if it's in the same bucket as Valve or GitHub: at Mobile Jazz http://mobilejazz.com we're only 20 people (and that makes things a lot easier), but we've quite a different way of working compared to traditional companies: * We pay fair salaries. For most people in our team it's way more than what they've earned before. * We pay everyone the same (base) salary. Regardless of their role or title. * We pay quart…

You mentioned a base salary for everybody. Can you give me a specific number?

Re: Ask HN: Do you know other firms like Valve or GitHub?

#48
I love this model of working, but I think it's a lot more common in engineering teams than people realize. My company isn't anything special, and certainly most of the rest of the company doesn't work open allocation, but the engineering team pretty much does. You work on what you want, and you tell people what you're doing. Does anyone else feel this way?

Re: Ask HN: Do you know other firms like Valve or GitHub?

#49
post #47
post #39

Not sure if it's in the same bucket as Valve or GitHub: at Mobile Jazz http://mobilejazz.com we're only 20 people (and that makes things a lot easier), but we've quite a different way of working compared to traditional companies: * We pay fair salaries. For most people in our team it's way more than what they've earned before. * We pay everyone the same (base) salary. Regardless of their role or title. * We pay quart…

You mentioned a base salary for everybody. Can you give me a specific number?

We're currently at around 53k€ for someone who works full-time, which is slightly above average for Germany and very high for Southern Europe, where most of our people are from.

We also have a few from Latin America, Eastern Europe and Mauritius, where this is also a very good salary.

We weren't looking specifically in those countries nor are we limiting ourselves, but it simply happened that we found people through contacts in our personal networks.

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