Video and slides synchronized, mp3 and slide download available at URL http://bit.ly/1dg9k81. Greg Brockman shares Stripe's principles powering their software projects and the culture instilled to avoid the usual software engineering traps: failed rewrites, delayed timelines, etc. Filmed at qconsf.com. Greg Brockman is Stripe's CTO. He has been helping build out Stripe's technology stack since joining as the second employee. He built the initial infrastructure powering the Stripe API and these days works primarily on scaling the team and architecture. Greg studied mathematics at Harvard and computer science at MIT.

1. Building a Culture Where
Software Projects Get
Done
Greg Brockman
CTO at Stripe
@thegdb

2. Watch the video with slide
synchronization on InfoQ.com!
http://www.infoq.com/presentations
/stripe-culture
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5. We don’t know how
to build software

6. EXPECTED
Today
LIKELY
Disappointing
Insane
Engineering timelines
will slip

7. System complexity
never decreases

8. Rewrites will always fail
(that doesn’t stop people
from trying, though)

9. You are not special

10. Choose wisely how
you’re spending your

11. Roll your own solution to
your hardest problems,
not your easiest ones

12. Balance creation
versus maintenance

13. 5.times {print “Automate”}

14. Once a bug is
triggered, it will keep

15. Invest in technology to
support your rate of
change

16. Tests aren’t for your
benefit

17. Create a technology
monoculture

18. You will have
technical debt —
Image Credit: Philippe Kruchten

19. Pick a few standards

20. Have checks and
balances against

21. Minimize distance to
the first production use
Time to shard
everything: 3 months

22. Have assumption
questioners

23. Bus factor: not just for bus
accidents

24. Use forcing functions
(cautiously)

25. Have a good launch
process in place

26. Have good post-hoc
processes in place

27. Make collaboration
great

28. Find communication
sidechannels

29. Documentation should
not be a primary source

30. Meetings: useful but
costly

31. Have design dictators

32. Have lots of remotes
or no remotes

33. Greg Brockman
gdb@stripe.com
@thegdb

34. Watch the video with slide synchronization on
InfoQ.com!
http://www.infoq.com/presentations/stripeculture