Building Distributed Systems in Distributed Teams
A presentation at PHP CE in in Prague, Czechia by Philipp Krenn
Building DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS in DISTRIBUTED TEAMS Philipp Krenn @xeraa
Who is working from HOME?
Who is working from a COWORKING SPACE?
Who is working from an OFFICE?
Who can work from home for 1 DAY / WEEK?
DEVELOPER
VORONOI DIAGRAM & CLUSTER
UNSTRUCTURED, DISTRIBUTED, DIVERSE
1,100 ELASTICIANS +
Elasticats Elastronauts ELKompadres Elastics Elastigons Elasticers ElastiCoolians Homo Elasticus Elasticitizens {elastician} Elasticodians The Elasticrew Elasticons Elastonians from Elastonia Elastic Dudes / Elastic Dudettes
37+ COUNTRIES 30+ LANGUAGES 19+ TIME ZONES 16 OFFICES
Distributed By Design
DISTRIBUTED NOT REMOTE
X-SCHOOL
ALWAYS ON
(CROSS) TEAM TIME BUGPOOL, FIXITFRIDAY, OFFICE HOURS,...
RELEASE PARTY
PROCESS PER TEAM
ENGINEERING ALL HANDS SALES KICKOFF
Values
ELASTICSEARCH TEAM DEVELOPMENT CONSTITUTION https://github.com/elastic/engineering/blob/master/development_constitution.md
TECH PROGRESS OVER PERFECTION
TECH DESIGN FOR TODAY! USE ABSTRACTIONS WITH CARE
TECH BUILD FEATURES IN ISOLATION
TECH REMOVE FIRST, FIX LATER
TECH ONLY ACCEPT FEATURES THAT SCALE
TECH BE FAST BY DEFAULT; SLOW IS OPTIONAL
PEOPLE BE KIND
PEOPLE EMPATHY FOR PASSION
PEOPLE REPORT ABUSIVE COMMENTS
Source Code HTTPS://WWW.ELASTIC.CO/ABOUT/OUR-SOURCE-CODE
Whatever you’re hustling for, take note: most people/companies are shut down until ‘18. That means you get 2 extra weeks to outwork your competition.
That’s 3.8% more time. For perspective: Usain Bolt won his gold medals running 1.2% faster. These 2 weeks are a gift. Get to work. — https://twitter.com/NathanCHubbard/status/ 942882853494202369
If I read this madness I want all my engineers to take 2 extra weeks off to make sure we are 6% behind but healthy! That would be a massive win! — https://twitter.com/s1m0nw/status/943021874086383616
Elastic will be providing 16 weeks of 100% paid parental leave during the first year following the birth or adoption of a child — whether you are a mom or a dad
MY EXPERIENCE
ELASTICIANS ARE TRUSTED
DO THE RIGHT THING
YOU VOLUNTEER
SOMETIMES YOU ARE VOLUNTOLD
COMMUNICATION IS OPEN & PUBLIC
NEW PRODUCTS JOIN THE FAMILY
Downsides
SHARE THE PAIN OF TIMEZONES
COMMUNICATION CAN FAIL
CULTURES ARE DIFFERENT
DECISIONS CAN DRAG
Day
CRAZY
FLEXIBLE
TRADITIONAL
Tools
SYNC
ASYNC
TEAM & TECH & PM LEAD PER PROJECT
STACK LEAD
VP OF ENGINEERING
CTO ▶ CEO
Hiring
OH: It's not "hard" skills vs "soft" skills - its "technical" vs "professional" skills. — https://twitter.com/freakboy3742/status/907032201497255942
AGE, GENDER, LOCATION, RACE,... IS JUST AN ATTRIBUTE
1,000+ CV PER WEEK
NO BULLSHIT INTERVIEWS
500 TO 600: 5M 600 TO 700: 3M 700 TO 800: 2M
Numbers
INDICATOR ARRIVALS: 130 DEPARTURES: 9
Conclusion
Vianney Chevalier, https://twitter.com/vianneytwins/status/997125952835653633
Vianney Chevalier, https://twitter.com/vianneytwins/status/997125952835653633
Who wants to work from AN OFFICE?
Who wants to work from HOME?
NO GOING BACK
https://www.elastic.co/about/careers
QUESTIONS? Philipp Krenn @xeraa
Building distributed systems is notoriously hard... building a distributed team, even more so. At Elastic — the company behind the open source tools Elasticsearch, Kibana, Beats, and Logstash — everything is distributed; the company and our products. This talk dives into the details of how Elastic is thriving on its distributed model:
- How Elastic started to be distributed by design.
- What our shared values are and what we have learned as we progressed and grew to our current size.
- What the day of an Elastician can look like.
- What we are using in terms of tooling.
- How we hire and onboard new employees.
