This document is confidential and is intended solely for use by its original recipient for informational purposes. Neither the document nor any of the information contained in this document may be reproduced or disclosed to other persons without the prior written approval of Zattoo Inc. Engineering Report 2007 Dug Song, VP Engineering
• Outlined in my first official Zattoo e-mail: • Build a foundation for organizational growth (People) • Foster technology innovation (Technology) • Improve our capacity to support the business (Process) Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2007 11:38:54 -0400 From: [email protected] To: [email protected], [email protected] Subject: Quality, Innovation, and Organizational Excellence
3 Startup Engineering • Engine of creation, fueled by ideas • Produce high achievement through intense team collaboration under extreme conditions • Balance delivery and discovery (creativity in the face of deadlines) • Hard economic result through “soft” means - jelled teams, inspirational work environment – Product/technology can be copied, teams can’t • Offer accountability – That which is not measured does not improve
4 People First • Organize and build teams to jell – Application (user), infrastructure (internal), enterprise (ad, content, service partners) • Identify and backfill gaps • Build the engine for talent acquisition • Plan to develop our talent – Training, mentorship, management • Aim for 100% retention rate – Must preserve continuity in culture and institutional knowledge during high growth period • Keep up morale – Burnout is contagious, bad attitudes can kill
6 Hiring Goals • Build a network of talent to tap into – Recruiting is not just about filling headcount – Develop relationships and standing in the community to draw top talent • Institute a t eam-oriented hiring process – Preserve the culture and organizational momentum, and seek to expand our potential – Hire for cultural fit, motivation, and talent, in order • Professional, reliable process to land big fish – Hiring process must be actively managed – Good people refer their friends - and also warn them
10 Hiring Lessons • Referrals are key – Engineers need professional networks – 2 recruited interns were also Sugih’s referrals - nice to have the top picks from the University :-) • Compensation is only half the equation – You have to pay engineers what they’re worth, not what they can negotiate – But money doesn’t motivate better creative work - people, projects, and environment do – Engineers who are thinking about money aren’t thinking about engineering • Culture, values, and ownership are key • Must offer opportunity for career development
11 Culture, Values, Ownership • Onboarding process for new hires – Mentorship for interns • Tech talks, conferences, training – Both as attendees and speakers – Help engineers build their professional networks • Promote open-source culture and values – Support flex time, remote work, mentorship, social events – Stand on the shoulders of giants / Don’t reinvent wheels • Invest in the best tools for our engineers – Our people are always worth the investment – Hardware, software, books, internal systems • Delegate authority and responsibility – Grow our engineers into positions of internal and external leadership
12 Technical Career Track Architecture (Architect): Develop and promote appropriate technology choices, tradeoffs, strategy, and design, reference work and documentation E13: Software Architect Competance (Practitioner): Make significant contributions to individual projects and acquire professional-level skills in software engineering E10: Software Engineer II Leadership (Leader): Provide significant leadership to individual projects and make regular, strong contributions to the company E11: Senior Software Engineer Mastery (Master): Make extraordinary contributions to the company and significant or extraordinary contributions to the field of software engineering E12: Principal Software Engineer Introductory (Apprentice): Acquire proficiency in fundamental skills of excellent software development E9: Software Engineer I Internship (Trainee): Practical, supervised, on-the-job training and evaluation for full-time hire E8: Technical Intern Role / Responsibility Title
13 The Learning Organization • Build knowledge systems to raise the entire team up – Grow high-performing teams, not just individuals – Look for mentorship, management potential in every hire • Introduced tech talks – Internal talks on core Zattoo technology – External talks from world-class speakers (Sun, Slashdot, RedHat, Sony Imageworks, Arbor, etc.) • Introduced code, change, and design reviews – Develop shared standards and values – Ensure idiomatic, maintainable, bug-scrubbed code • Introduced tools for constant, transparent, and asynchronous communication – IRC, Confluence, SVN commit mails, conference bridges • Document and measure everything
15 Technology Goals • Balance delivery and discovery – Not everything has a deadline – But everything must be managed – Sugih is directing technical invention • Foster value-driven innovation – Market news, competitive analysis, research – Give people room to think and invent • Protect our intellectual property – IP and license audit started • Build a strong IP portfolio – Set up a patent program for the company
16 Process • Manage time, cost, quality – Software engineering primer: Ship It! – New business requirements dictate more explicit project / release management – Grow project management capacity • Fail fast, fail forward – Iterative, incremental delivery – Iterative, collaborative design process: debug on paper (or the wiki) first - not software* – Detect and mitigate risk early – Construct test plans and infrastructure • Minimize user impact of failures – Deployment plans essential – Staged deployment – Offer stable AND experimental releases *prototyping is the exception, not the rule
18 Releases in 2007 • 18 releases in 12 months, averaging 19 days between releases (16 median, 53 max) • Process changes introduced gradually during GODZILLA, in the midst of major backend rework, new development, and new projects
26 Plans for 2008 • Continue to improve basic execution – Formalize and communicate development process – Improve communication paths and tools with the rest of the company - wiki, videoconferencing, etc. – Budget, measure, analyze our work • Focus on user experience – Aggressively innovate through preview releases – Improve product and service quality – Systematize operations • More organizational development – Training and cross-functional work to build up teams technical and management capability
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