Software Engineering Culture: Lessons from 3 Successful Platforms

Netflix, Spotify, and Basecamp are three platforms that have thrived, partly due to their clearly defined and organized software engineering cultures. What lessons are there to be learned from them?

Netflix

Everyone’s favourite streaming platform not only revolutionized the way we watch movies and series but created a remarkable software engineering culture based on the combination of two concepts: freedom and responsibility. Netflix engineers are free to be creative and flexible, while at the same time being responsible for the quality of their products, the functionality of the tools they employ and for providing solutions to problems that may occur during the engineering process. The freedom and responsibility philosophy also gives engineers the opportunity to constantly enhance their skills and a key lesson to take away from Netflix’s official culture presentation is presented below:

“Responsible people thrive on freedom and are worthy of freedom. With the right people, instead of a culture of process adherence, we have a culture of creativity and self-discipline.”

Spotify

Spotify created a highly detailed engineering culture that is always somewhere between “How Things Are Today” and “How We Want Things To Be”. Two videos will take you through that journey and give plenty of food for thought:

Spotify Engineering Culture — part 1

Spotify Engineering Culture — part 2

If the videos above have whetted your appetite, make sure to follow the Software Engineer Daily podcast on the platform!

Basecamp

Basecamp is known for developing popular web-based project management platforms and CRM tools. You may also know it as the birthplace of Ruby on Rails! The secrets of Basecamp’s success lie at the heart of their software engineering culture, which is described in detail on their Basecamp Employee Handbook. Their core values?

· Be Straightforward.

· Be fair and do the right thing.

· Levelheadedness.

· Generosity.

· Independence.

Key takeaway

What becomes easily apparent when examining the three paradigms above is the fact that a software company thrives when it has invested in its culture, providing its engineers with the environment and the values that will help them bring out the best in them.

A clearly defined culture with distinct values is also at the heart of Agile Actors. Our vision? To be the environment of choice of the ambitious tech professionals where they achieve their full potential through continuous development. Do you fit that description? If the answer is yes, we would love to meet you in person! Check out our current openings and stay tuned to our blog for more articles on software engineering culture and personal development.