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Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?

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Re: Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?

#111

Post by hashhar »

Vinnl wrote: post #36

Reading the Netflix engineering blog now and then, I do appreciate how many of their engineering decisions also take into account the effect it will have on their colleagues, i.e. "does this change affect how quickly/independently our engineers can do stuff"?

I see the same with StackOverflow. Most of the engineering decisions they take are widely discussed on podcasts and blogs by the employees and they try to write detailed writeups of why they do what they do and how. I think it has carried over from Jeff Atwood and Geoff Dalgas when they started out on stackoverflow.

Re: Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?

#113

Post by throwaway698769 »

mattmanser wrote: post #89
danpalmer wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've spoken to Facebook engineers who work on their internal source control systems, and it was pretty obvious from talking to them that Git wouldn't work for their purposes. There is plenty of writing about this topic that explains in some detail why Git is unsuitable, and why Mercurial was a better option for them. As for the 18k classes in their iOS app, I don't see why this is a sign of bad engineering? I'd expec…

It's nothing more complex than 100,000s of other apps out there. Yet somehow they managed to create 18k classes? Scale is handled at the back-end.

You are completely right.

As a small-company person who migrated a few years ago to one of the Big Four, I can confirm that almost every time someone tells you about "scale" they are bullshitting you. Most developers on those companies either do not deal with scale at all (anyone dealing with front end stuff) or do so by using abstractions which allow them to ignore scale (99% of developers). But scale sounds sexy so everybody pretends they have something to do with it. And it sounds better than "bloat" which is what they really mean.

The other variant of "scale" is "I have this single-computer application running on X hundred thousand servers" or some ambarrasingly parallel problem of that sort. Then they will claim boldly that something that has a 0,0001% chance of happening "happens multiple times a day here" which sounds impressive until you realize that that thing has no impact on the SLA and you get saved by the load balancer so it isn't particularly important anyway.

The 1% of people who work on real problems in the area don't need to brag on the Internet about "scale" because they are too busy working.

Re: Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?

#114

Post by nxc18 »

FlorianRappl wrote: post #49

I am surprised that no one mentioned Microsoft so far. These days they are professional, innovation-driven, and do not bring in much of the unnecessary cult that comes with companies like Google. They are more open than Apple. Also from a personal experience I think their interviews / hiring methods are better than all of the other big players.

But are their engineering practices better? They used to take test seriously, but then they fired all the testers and quality of basic things has slipped. They don't even hire for dedicated testing roles any more.

I get that devs are supposed to test their own code, but they are surprisingly bad at it overall and unit tests, despite being a great meme, just don't cut it.

Some examples of quality issues: new limit to how many items can be in the start menu. I see bugs/rendering issues in Word for the first time ever (Windows and Mac). Edge is glitch when opening/closing tabs.

Re: Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?

#115

Post by mrswag »

jacques_chester wrote: post #92
coldcode wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically they hire 2 people to do 1 person's work. I guess its a nice employment policy. But I would never work there.

> Basically they hire 2 people to do 1 person's work. Pivotal is a for-profit company. We pair program because we think it's more effective for most engineering activities (not all: most) than soloing. I'm vastly more productive in a pair. I don't take 3 hour "5 minute" Facebook breaks. If I get stuck, my pair usually has an idea, so rather than spending a day fighting I spend minutes. Usually the discussion with a p…

I'm genuinely wondering: is pair programming better, compared to doing the design in pair, going to work on your own, then reviewing each other's code?

As an introvert I don't think I could handle the "pair all day" approach.

Re: Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?

#116

Post by grardb »

g12mcgov wrote: post #95

Etsy. I don't work there, but I've interviewed there twice and know lots of contacts who work there, and it's a great engineering culture. The overwhelming majority of the company are engineers, and they have a large commitment to OSS, which was one of the initial selling points for me. Not to mention, Rasmus Lerdorf works there, and several of their engineers contribute to HHVM.

I'm a former Etsy employee. The engineering culture is awesome there, but I feel the need to point out that the majority of the company are not engineers. Even when I joined in 2013, we were about half the company. By the time I left (June 2016), we were around 1/4 or so.

Re: Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?

#117

Post by badthingfactory »

criddell wrote: post #103
United857 wrote: post #22

I'm biased, but I'd say out of all the "big" tech companies, FB has the best engineering culture. * With few exceptions, engineers aren't hired for a specific team; they go through bootcamp where they get exposure to all parts of the stack and tasks from different teams. * Ideas usually come from engineers. Managers are there to be a sounding board/connect you with people resources as needed. * Moving fast is valued…

I don't think I could work in an open plan office. I just can't concentrate well enough to do really good work in an environment like that.

Having worked in a bullpen style office (I now work from home), it wasn't the open floor plan that was a problem, it was the number of people management crammed into that open floor plan that became problematic.

At one point, we had completely outgrown our space and we were constantly tripping over one another. It was miserable and everyone was constantly sick. Eventually, we got more real estate and everyone was happy, more productive, and less ill.

As long as you have the real estate, open floor plans are nice and help you feel less imprisoned than cubicles imo.

Re: Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?

#118

Post by tehlike »

exfacebook wrote: post #33
pmiller2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested to know more about the "initiation rites."

I'm guessing he means readability. Google fetisihizes consistency, even at the cost of ingenuity and productivity. Heroism is a virtue at some other companies; at Google, it's a sin.

did you work at google before?

I would love a fair comparison.

Re: Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?

#119

Post by criddell »

badthingfactory wrote: post #117
criddell wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I could work in an open plan office. I just can't concentrate well enough to do really good work in an environment like that.

Having worked in a bullpen style office (I now work from home), it wasn't the open floor plan that was a problem, it was the number of people management crammed into that open floor plan that became problematic. At one point, we had completely outgrown our space and we were constantly tripping over one another. It was miserable and everyone was constantly sick. Eventually, we got more real estate and everyone was hap…

Oh, cubicles suck too. I prefer an office with a door.

Re: Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?

#120

Post by gurkendoktor »

prohor wrote: post #3

Spotify sounds very interesting to me. But I don't work there, so cannot really tell if it really works as they describe. https://labs.spotify.com/2014/03/27/spotify-engineering-cult... https://labs.spotify.com/2014/09/20/spotify-engineering-cult...

The Spotify app for macOS has a habit of eating 100% for no reason, even when no music is playing. I habitually quit Spotify every time I leave the room. I hate coming back from shopping only to realise that my laptop fans have been running for hours. Poor machine.

These kinds of problems with Spotify, SpotifyHelper, SpotifyWebHelper etc. have been well-documented for years. It would kill me to work for a company with such low engineering standards.

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