Video and slides synchronized, mp3 and slide download available at URL http://bit.ly/1NhOSuu. Nikhil Garg talks about the mental frameworks, processes and tools that allow Quora to strike a good balance and move fast sustainably, both in the short-term and in the long-term. Filmed at qconsf.com. Nikhil Garg is an engineering manager at Quora where he is leading a team of great engineers working on Quora’s core product features and the quality of the user content. Nikhil is very interested in distributed systems, product design and user experience, different programming paradigms, and machine learning.

1. Quora’s Approach To
Moving Fast Sustainably
(In Ten Lessons)
Nikhil Garg (@nikhilgarg)
Qcon San Francisco, 11/18/2015

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Watch the video with slide
synchronization on InfoQ.com!
http://www.infoq.com/presentations
/quora-processes-tools

3. Purpose of QCon
- to empower software development by facilitating the spread of
knowledge and innovation
Strategy
- practitioner-driven conference designed for YOU: influencers of
change and innovation in your teams
- speakers and topics driving the evolution and innovation
- connecting and catalyzing the influencers and innovators
Highlights
- attended by more than 12,000 delegates since 2007
- held in 9 cities worldwide
Presented at QCon San Francisco
www.qconsf.com

5. IIT Delhi

7. To Grow And Share World’s Knowledge
Quora’s Mission

8. “Quora is a place where a normal teenager from a remote
Asian country can get direct advice from world’s top
astronauts, programmers, novelists and many others.”
Rajeeb Banstola
High School Student, Nepal

12. @Quora {
Founded in 2010
65 Engineers
Python, JS, C++
}

13. 1. Moving Fast
2. Moving Fast Recklessly
3. Ten Lessons For Sustainability

14. 1. Moving Fast
2. Moving Fast Recklessly
3. Ten Lessons For Sustainability

16. Maximizing Innovation

18. Winner Takes All

19. 1. Moving Fast
2. Moving Fast Recklessly
3. Ten Lessons For Sustainability

20. Code Becomes Messy

21. Developers Become Unhappy

22. Development Can Just Halt

23. ...So Must Move Fast, Sustainably

24. 1. Moving Fast
2. Moving Fast Recklessly
3. Ten Lessons For Sustainability

25. 1. Move Fast, On Average

26. 2: Think Long Enough Term2. Define Your Long-Enough Term

27. 3. Do The Math. There IS Free Lunch

28. Building a Linter takes 4 weeks (160 hours)
Saves 1 hour per developer per week
At 50 developers, saves 50 hours per week
Saves 400 hours in 8 more weeks

29. Qlint: Quora’s Python Linter

33. Soon Going to Open Source Qlint :)

34. 4. Commit Publicly

35. Define your long-enough term
Publicly commit to it
Empower developers to order free-lunch
Enjoy higher increased average speed

36. 5. Cut Corners In Scope

39. 6. Optimize Productivity Bottlenecks

40. Testing At Quora

43. 7. Reward Acceleration

44. Code Cleanup

45. Automation

46. 8. Prevent Deceleration

47. Slow Creep Of Complexity

48. Batched Code Cleanup At Quora

49. Codebase Is A Tree

50. 9. Optimize Processes

51. Continuous Deployment
‘Git Push’ To Production In 10 Minutes

52. 10. Be Practical, Not Ideological

53. Code Reviews Are Awesome

54. Style / Design
Education / Collaboration
Correctness [?]
[?] http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/180283/ICSE%202013-codereview.pdf

55. But Pre-Commit Reviews Are Costly

56. (Code is reviewed after it goes to production)
Post Commit Code Reviews
Taking continuous deployment to the next level

57. Style / Design
Education / Collaboration
Correctness [?] → Testing
[?] http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/180283/ICSE%202013-codereview.pdf

58. Fall Back To Pre-Commit Reviews

59. Codebase Is A Tree

60. Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission!

61. Avoid truly terrible outcomes
Maximize expected speed
Minimize bad outcomes

62. Summary

63. Move Fast, On Average
Define Your Long Enough Term
Do the Math. There IS Free Lunch
Commit Publicly
Cut Corners In Scope
Optimize Productivity Bottlenecks
Reward Acceleration
Prevent Deceleration
Optimize Processes
Be Practical, Not Ideological

64. ● Empower developers to move fast on average over
long enough term by getting free lunch.
● Profile productivity like code, measure, optimize,
make practical trade-offs.
● Post commit code reviews work, codebase is a tree.

65. Nikhil Garg
@nikhilgarg28 { Gmail, Github, Twitter, LinkedIn }
Thank you!
Quora Is Hiring

66. Watch the video with slide synchronization on
InfoQ.com!
http://www.infoq.com/presentations/quora-
processes-tools