Inside Pixelmatters’ Engineering team: new dynamics, processes, and tools
As Pixelmatters’ CTO, it’s important to continuously find ways of inspiring, leading, and motivating a team. And there’s one thing I’m sure of — it all starts with people: from providing meaningful feedback, fostering an internal culture, to encouraging each person to be better than yesterday. That’s why we’ve been experimenting and adapting different (and new) dynamics, processes, and tools on the Engineering Team. Would you like to know more? Let’s discover them!
Shaping new team strategies
In a year strongly impacted by the pandemic, we focused on having the team motivated, productive, and happy with new methodologies and work processes, such as:
- Introduction of a Principal Developer role to the team: to be closer to the technical teams, discuss implementations from an outsider standpoint, unblock someone facing an issue and support daily tasks. This role also helped to delegate several technical tasks that were more time-consuming for the Engineering Management Team — the CTO and the Engineering Director. Having a Principal Developer in a full-remote environment was crucial to keep our team’s collaboration and productivity in place.
- Creation of the Engineering Handbook: started a book dedicated to the best practices that our team should consider for any project, flexible enough to adapt to each client’s scope. With continuous feedback sessions, our Engineering Handbook is still being created, but it has already brought several advantages to our everyday work (more on this soon);
- Giving back to the community: gathered and organized small pieces of reusable code and shared them publicly on GitHub. Not only did we show our experience regarding linting configurations, but also contributed positively to the community.
- Investment in R&D: it’s important to be aware of different market offers and seek possible opportunities for the Engineering Team and Pixelmatters. Considering this, we investigated no-code, eCommerce tools, and new frameworks, such as Webflow, Shopify, and Svelte.
- Closer communication and transparency: we introduced regular touch-bases, including a monthly Engineering meeting to discuss the past, current, and future of the Department. In addition, we also have more regular 1on1s to go deeper into topics that usually aren’t discussed in front of a wider audience. And there’s only one rule: maximum transparency possible without tabus.
Getting things done, with quality
While maintaining our team connected and motivated, the Engineering department also wanted to guarantee clients’ happiness and satisfaction, ensuring that the quality standards are fulfilled in every task we make. To achieve that, we’ve worked on several QA processes, including:
- Improvement of the QA Reporting Process: together with the Product Team, we’ve defined a new reporting process standard. Initially, it was mostly focused on web-based applications, but then we ended up including mobile development in the mix.
- Continuous work on QA documentation: with a focus on improving quality in every single project at Pixelmatters, our team has created diversified documentation. We introduced generic non-functional requirements, as well as web and mobile apps Generic Test Plan.
The Engineering Team also introduced monitoring tools to new and existing projects, such as Sentry APM, Elastic APM, or New Relic. It was very relevant in order to track early bugs in the code, infrastructure problems, among others, and act accordingly.
Looking at the future
Yes, the pandemic brought several changes and challenges in the way we work, relate, and communicate. But, together, the Engineering team adapted, evolved, and became closer. We’ve implemented key processes and initiatives, which proved to be a solid foundation for what’s coming.
All this isn’t over yet. We’ll keep creating an atmosphere of creativity, empowering our partners to achieve their full potential with top-notch digital products, where code quality and passionate people will always prevail.
