What makes a good engineering culture

Great products are built by great engineering teams, and great engineering teams are built on great engineering cultures. The attached post from Edmond Lau (who's an engineer at Quora), is one of the best definitions of what makes a great engineering culture I have seen in a long time.

He focuses on 10 key elements:

  1. Optimize for iteration speed
  2. Push relentlessly toward automation
  3. Build the right software abstractions
  4. Develop a focus on high code quality with code reviews
  5. Maintain a respectful work environment
  6. Build shared ownership of code
  7. Invest in automated testing
  8. Allot 20% Time
  9. Build a culture of learning and continuous improvement
  10. Hire the best 

This all sounds like motherhood and apple pie stuff, but it isn't and I encourage you to read his well written post here