Values of Great Engineers

Values that I've seen in practice from the engineers that I've worked with at Meta and other tech companies

Over the last few years, I’ve been lucky to have been given the opportunity to work with great engineers at companies like Meta, Modern Treasury, and others. The best engineers I’ve worked with were great in obvious ways - they finished their work quickly, set and made deadlines, and produced great work. What interested me were the non-obvious traits that made them and the companies they’ve worked at successful. What I’ve concluded is that some of the best engineers demonstrate a shared set of values in their work, which I believe every engineer can co-opt and emulate.

As I’m currently working on building something on my own, I look back at the values of the best engineers I’ve worked with for inspiration on how to do great work. I’ve tried to distill what I’ve seen into a few values below.

Not Afraid of the Details

There is a generally accepted paradox in engineering management that the more senior an engineer is, the less necessary is her ability to write code. While this may make sense at first: the core competency of an engineering leader is to architect and manage teams, not code, I believe that the best engineering leaders actually practice the opposite: they’re able to dive into the details and set an example for the rest of their team.

One concrete example of this was working with an engineering director that was growing her team. At first, while her team was small, she was directly involved with the scope of work her team is responsible for, like setting up our company’s Datadog infrastructure or scaling our Postgres DB’s connection pools. As the team grew, she was able to seamlessly transition ownership off to people she hired.

An engineering leader that is able to demonstrate proficiency in all levels of their team, from managing the team to completing the IC work, is able to lead their team by example, raising the bar for the entire organization. It’s not a surprise that engineers under a strong engineering leader’s leadership are able to move forward in their careers quickly, as the archetype of their next role is right in front of them.

Value Craftsmanship

Steve Jobs wasn’t the last to strive to build things “insanely great.” From my perspective, great engineers must deeply care about quality of their work beyond the level of care commanded of them. The result of demonstrating craftsmanship in their work are undoubtably great products that speak for themselves.

One clear cut example of craftsmanship in software is the Stripe API. Put simply, every detail in Stripe’s data models has been clearly thought through, which is why developers prefer to use Stripe over other payment solutions. The result of their API craftsmanship is an enduring business that makes billions of dollars every year. So many engineering marvels in our modern world - the iPhone, the Toyota Camry, and the Stripe API, are examples of enduring engineering craftsmanship.

I think of Modern Treasury’s Payment Order API as another example of an API reference built with care. Having built payment integrations against a variety of payment API vendors, it’s obvious where an engineer built something because they were forced to or if they built it because they actually wanted it to be useful and pleasant to use. The best engineers should always strive for craftsmanship in their work and care about building something beautiful.

Sovereignty

Are great engineers successful because they work for successful companies, or are companies successful because they have great engineers? I believe both are equally true. Great engineers aren’t dictated by their team, their manager, their organization, or their company - they find the right place to be themselves, and they continue to earn their spot there by doing great work.

Engineers must find great work to do to avoid stagnation. Meta famously makes it very easy to switch teams and find impactful work, which is their way of retaining talent.

Caring About Users

When I first interned at Facebook, I was surprised at how passionately people felt about the users that used their products. On the outside, the news media painted a picture of software engineers apathetic to the results of their work, but on the inside were engineers that deeply cared about the people that used their software. In fact, during the Cambridge Analytica scandal, many engineers switched teams or quit to prove their point.

Whether working on a billion user consumer app or a B2B SaaS, the best engineers demonstrate a deep empathy and responsibility for building something that brings joy to their people.

Enterprise software is riddled with applications that don’t meet the mark - which is sometimes celebrated in Silicon Valley today. “If Concur can make billions of dollars making enterprise software people hate to use, so can I!” This mindset fails for two reasons: bad products are hard to sell to users, even if they need it. Just as importantly, great engineers want to work on something that brings joy, and it will be hard to hire one to build something that they know doesn’t.

Mentoring Others

The one seems the most obvious - the best people I’ve worked with work hard to raise the bar for everyone around them. Proactive mentorship is one of the best things an engineer can do for their organization and their colleagues.

Looking back at my most formative experiences working in tech over the last few years, I look fondly back to memories of my coworkers pushing me to be better. Whether it’s to improve an API-CR I’ve written, craftsmanship, or coaching me to take the next step in my career, sovereignty, and many other examples, carrying the torch and making the people you work with into becoming better engineers is a core competency for talented engineers.