Principles of great engineering cultures

At The Plum Guide, we have made a conscious decision to build a collaborative culture whilst maintaining a focus on autonomy, creativeness and self-empowerment.

Here are some of the key principles we to stick to:

Idea sharing and debate

For every new project we work on, we promote a collaborative environment where each developer can contribute their ideas and be taken seriously. There are no better people to evaluate the limits or limitlessness of technology at their disposal than the engineers of the platform, and at The Plum Guide, we frequently suggest and curate new ideas that other people in the business have not thought of.

When working on a new feature or task, each engineer has the ability to recommend new technologies and ideas as a solution. Have you read about something in your spare time that you think would be relevant? Perfect - suggest it, spike it, prove it is suitable. Done something similar before? You get the idea.

Every 2 weeks we hold a stack meeting to present changes and new tech we’ve introduced to the other engineers unfamiliar with the projects we’ve worked on. This is a great chance to broaden your knowledge and understand what other great work has been going on.

Never stray too far from the problem

As passionate tech people, it’s easy to get engulfed in the endless universe of available solutions to a problem. Without tight control, this can escalate and make a simple solution a marathon away. We know that delivering a working solution to the end user is a rewarding accomplishment. Constantly delivering value builds a stronger relationship between engineering and the rest of the business which in turn builds a rewarding engineering culture where the team knows they are contributing to the benefit of the business.

At The Plum Guide, we are lucky enough to have a wider team that will take the time out of their day to thank the engineering team for a new feature or bug fix that is going to make their lives easier.

No egos

The biggest blocker for a collaborative and tight-knit team, is a team full of egos — when someone doesn’t give time to anyone else’s opinion, and goes against good advice this can detriment morale and productivity across the team. It is important that a team of engineers has a healthy mix of self confidence and humility. This will only drive your engineering team to be more productive, happier and ultimately do better work.

Hire doers

At The Plum Guide, we require a quick turnaround of projects — the business has an endless amount of ideas to aid growth, expansion and our technology road map. We make sure we can do this by hiring serial doers and pragmatic engineers — those that have great ideas, can put them into practise efficiently and effectively while still being conscious of time scales and budgets.

Strive for continuous improvement

Continuous improvement relates to more than just the product, but also the process that supports it. Could something be better? Change it. Could our agile process be leaner, more effective and better at delivering results? Refine it.

Build a process around the team, not a team around the process.

At The Plum Guide, we embrace change and new ideas as the company evolves to find the right process that works for our team. The team is our biggest asset, and the processes we use are chosen to optimise our output. Recently, we’ve reduced the number of meetings we have, and reduced the amount of time for the essential meetings. We’re getting better at taking discussions offline and only with the relevant people, so our stand ups are quicker and more informative.

Done is better than perfect

Popularised by Facebook, and embraced by The Plum Guide, this doesn’t promote poor software, just an achievable end goal that isn’t utopia; a tangible endpoint in the project which delivers value. Striving for perfection creates the ideal environment for perfection paralysis, which only leads to 1 of 2 things: failing to deliver, or failing to deliver value.

Remember, nothing is perfect, therefore perfect is never done!

If you like the sound of what you have read, we are hiring! We’ve just closed our Series B round of funding, and have huge ambitions for the future. Come and be a part of this great adventure.