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Gergely Orosz Profile picture
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1 Nov, 4 tweets, 1 min read
Hot take: what is holding back most companies in becoming better at tech is that their leaders - CEOs, CTOs, VP Engs - have never worked on high-performing software teams as an engineer.

Their understanding of "best in class software teams" will always lag behind reality.
Look to tech companies who are nailing it and their leaders.

Facebook? Google? Amazon? Twilio? Hashicorp? Cloudfare?

They all have something in common. The CEO/founders were writing the code, and stayed hands-on with engineering for a very, very long time.
The best-in-class software teams do things that run completely counter-intuitive to most traditional management wisdom.

The best orgs in the world make calls like investing 20-30% of engineering on platform work, that leaders at other places cannot fathom to make.

Their loss.
“So what does a best-in-class software team look like?”

I write deep dives related to this topic weekly. Sign up for free newsletters (monthly) or paid ones (weekly + bonus ones) here: newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com

Tomorrow’s issue is on best-in-class engineering & manager onboarding

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More from @GergelyOrosz

Gergely Orosz Profile picture
2 Nov
Yes. No company with a good engineering culture has the title “junior”. Entry-level software engineers are called Software Engineer. Entry-level PMs: Product Manager.

“Junior” levels signal a hierarchical organisation where it sends the message “we don’t take you seriously”.
A short story: what happens when you drop “junior”. At Uber we rewrote the $50B/year payments system. Over 6 months, a core team of ~10 engineers emerged as goto people.

2 of these engineers were software engineers with 1-3 YOE. A “Junior” title would have made this impossible.
“Junior” makes people starting out self-conscious. It also makes others take them less seriously.

It’s a way for status-based people to feel good about themselves (“My juniors handle this: it’s trivial”). It’s a perfect way to cripple innovation often coming from these people.
Read 4 tweets
Gergely Orosz Profile picture
1 Nov
"What is your take on 'US software engineering culture' vs other cultures (like Scandinavian, Eastern EU etc)?"

A loaded question but here goes:

1. US-founded tech companies dominate global markets. Not understanding how and why they succeed is ignorance at its finest.
2. Some universal truths are starting to surface in sw engineering. Like iterating faster is (usually) more nimble to progress. Transparency (usually) helps the team. Micromanaging (usually) kills innovation.

These are dependent on context. Understand them, and their context.
3. There are cultures that are far more hierarchical and process-driven than others, and this reflects in the day-to-day. I'd run a company with only Hungarian engineers slightly differently than one with all Dutch, or all US ones.

Understand the culture you're surrounded with.
Read 6 tweets
Gergely Orosz Profile picture
31 Oct
My biggest “internet GDP increase” contribution so far is this article.

Got so many messages from engineers switching jobs once they realised there are “tiers” that pay a lot more. And several companies increased compensation after debating the contents:

blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engin…
Even now, this article is in C-level meetings at companies who all assumed they are closer to the top of the market because Radford or Mercer data tells the so.

But they’re not, because they never realised (till now) how Tier 2 and 3 companies don’t show up in those datasets.
The most surprising outcome of this article for me: the recruiter messages.

“I never realised why I don’t get responses from devs in certain companies despite telling them we pay ‘competitive’. I now see we are ‘Tier 1’. Over 10 years & never knew other, higher tiers existed…”
Read 4 tweets
Gergely Orosz Profile picture
30 Oct
An eng created a fake CV with Instagram, Zillow, LinkedIn, Microsoft and Berkeley on it, all details being nonsense. Got 60% response rate.

Reddit is going wild.

Me, as a hiring manager: what is surprising about any of this. It’s exactly how recruiting works. Let me explain:
1. Big tech gets hundreds of inbound applications per listing. So-called “inbound sourcers” filter each of these.

Inbound sourcing is the least fun type of recruiting. Tons of noise. They filter based on pedigree and relevance. As soon as they see similar companies: ✅
2. The next phase is a recruiter call. This is with a more hands-on recruiter. Joke resumes like this would be typically caught at this stage.

However, recruiters are still not technical and assume your CV is truthful. So they’ll gloss through engineering jokes.
Read 9 tweets
Gergely Orosz Profile picture
29 Oct
The Pragmatic Engineer Test is a 12-question "challenge" I created to get a sense of great engineering cultures.

With over 200 companies filling it out, 30% of them score a perfect 12 /12 (!!) and 68% at least 10/12.

See the test, and the list here: blog.pragmaticengineer.com/pragmatic-engi…
Gotten a reachout to remove the equity one:

"We're profitable w non-PE backing. Makes no sense to issue stock. The question is irrelevant."

"Ok. Do you give $$$ bonuses?"

"No: we need to stay profitable."

"I understand. But clearly you offer no upside vs VC-backed companies."
Working at profitable, non-VC-backed companies has many upsides. Good WLB, no focus on growing(as long as the business stays profitable).

But let's acknowledge these places don't offer a way to become an owner in an asset that could, one day, sell for $$$ blog.pragmaticengineer.com/equity-for-sof…
Read 4 tweets
Gergely Orosz Profile picture
28 Oct
The past months I've gotten so many DMs from engineers with experience who looked were happy at where they were, but still looked around on the job market after coming across me talking about it... and got amazing offers.

Here are a few. A few thoughts on why I'm sharing these: Image
1. It's because the market for senior engineers has never been this hot. And I don't think it ever will be. It is already cooling down: take advantage of it while it lasts.

2. I believe competition results in better comp for employees and forces higher leverage for companies.
3. There's a window of opportunity for sr engineers to get outsized compensation *as employees* through a mix of salary & equity. More on why equity is so important: blog.pragmaticengineer.com/equity-for-sof…

This window will get smaller as the supply catches up with demand.
Read 4 tweets

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