The things we value @ Loft
One of the deciding factors when joining Loft was the ability to help forge the engineering culture at this brand new company.
Culture is that unknown force that everybody on the team understand although it can be hard to define. On the engineering team, it is the set of unspoken rules that guide what features we will take on, how we make decisions and how we plan changes.
At Loft, our engineering team culture revolves around 3 values: engineering excellence, metrics focus and constant iteration. It is worth calling out that these are not the company culture values, which are more broad, but how the company values translate to the practices in the product/tech team.
The 'how' can be just as important as the 'what'
Engineering excellence means we will always strive to find the best solution for a problem. This means the team is open to discussing at length how to implement a feature, which framework to use, which instrumentation will be required. We might not implement the perfect solution right away, but analyzing the possibilities is an essential part of the process, and all of us learn from these discussions. Lofters love learning every day from the great people we work with and these group discussions is one of the ways how this happens. Establishing that future Lofters are aligned with this principle is a big part of our interview process.
Show me data
Something you will often hear at discussions with the engineering team is: 'does it move the needle?' This is a check to make sure the decisions we are taking are backed by metrics that justify them. I particularly love this way of thinking because it sets us apart from companies where decisions are made based on the opinion of a few influential people on the organization. Using metrics and data as our guideline, anyone's opinion carry the same weight.
If we have data, let’s look at data. If all we have are opinions, let’s go with mine. — Jim Barksdale
Move fast
The last (but not less important) cultural trait is doing small and constant iterations. This might come for granted to some of us that have been working with agile development for a while. Breaking down deliveries in small pieces is essential anywhere, but on a fast growing and extremely dynamic company such as Loft is even more vital.
Baby steps and small victories — Team mantra
It is important to call out that small deliverables are only acceptable if they are going out quickly and in a constant pace. We strongly believe that pushing code to production should be a painless process that should happen as frequently as possible. Painless push to production mean developers are not worried about features getting broken on every deploy. This is only achievable with extensive test automation and accurate monitoring.
We used to joke about deploy on Friday. Some might think this is an anti-pattern. Deploy on Friday should only be a concern if you think deploying means at least one dedicated engineer will babysit the deployment and do extensive manual testing later to check things are working as expected over the weekend. I am a big advocate for deploying on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and any day you need. If you have quality gates in place, deploying is a natural part of the process and shouldn't put any stress on the team.
Bonus: Have fun while you are at it
As I said before, Loft has values that are company-wide, one of them is enjoy the ride. Our development team embraces this value as you can see below.
If you like what you read, and also believe these are values we should carry close to our hearts while developing code and products, don't be shy: come join us at this amazing company.
