Engineering Culture at Successful Companies: 9 Common Traits

What are the common characteristics of engineering culture at successful software companies? While not an exhaustive list, this article takes a look at six well known software companies and some of the common engineering culture patterns that can be observed across them. It is important to know that each of these companies embodies more than the characteristics listed here. However, the goal is to mention some of the common patterns. If you’re looking to build or enhance your own engineering culture, understanding the common characteristics shared by these industry leaders is a great place to start.

1) Ownership and Accountability

Ownership and Accountability mean giving engineers the responsibility to manage their projects and outcomes fully. The goal is to empower them to make decisions and take charge of their work, ensuring they feel accountable for both successes and setbacks.

Examples

• Figma: Engineers are encouraged to make decisions, propose projects, and help set strategy. This empowers them to take full responsibility for their work.
• Twilio: Teams act like functional CEOs, with full ownership and responsibility over their software and projects.
• Stripe: Emphasizes that builders are owners of all outcomes and incidents, creating a mindset of extreme ownership.
• Slack: Engineers take full ownership of their projects, ensuring accountability for both development and maintenance.
• OpenAI: Teams are empowered to own their projects, promoting accountability and mission alignment.
• Airbnb: Engineers own their impact, building a sense of accountability and empowerment to drive significant progress.

When engineers feel ownership, they are more invested in their work. This not only drives innovation but also ensures high standards and continuous improvement. Empowered engineers are motivated to align their goals with the company’s mission, creating a unified drive towards success.

2) Diversity and Inclusion

Diversity and Inclusion involve building a workforce that reflects a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences. Importance is placed on creating an environment where everyone feels valued and empowered to contribute their unique insights.

Examples

• Figma: Committed to creating an inclusive workplace where diverse opinions are valued, supported by bias training and DE&I initiatives.
• Twilio: Actively builds an inclusive environment valuing diverse backgrounds, with institutional investments in DE&I.
• Stripe: Diversity and inclusion are core tenets, actively seeking engineers from varied disciplines and cultures.
• Slack: Committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace, enhancing creativity and innovation.
• OpenAI: Strives for a diverse workforce and inclusive environment, recognizing the value of varied perspectives.
• Airbnb: Actively seeks engineers from diverse backgrounds to enhance creativity and innovation, ensuring diverse perspectives in decision-making.

Diverse teams bring a ton of perspectives, which enhances problem-solving and creativity. An inclusive culture not only increases employee satisfaction and retention but also pushes innovation by leveraging the unique strengths of each team member.

3) Psychological Safety

Psychological Safety aims to create an environment where team members feel safe to express ideas, take risks, and make mistakes without fear of negative consequences. This is important for building open communication and innovation.

Examples

• Figma: Ensures team members feel safe to express ideas and take risks, promoting innovation.
• Twilio: Emphasizes a blameless culture, providing psychological safety for learning and improvement.
• Stripe: Prioritizes creating a safe environment for taking risks and sharing knowledge.
• Slack: Cultivates an environment where team members can express ideas without fear, supporting open dialogue.
• OpenAI: Promotes psychological safety to encourage innovation and open communication.
• Airbnb: Conducts blameless post-mortems, encouraging learning without fear of punishment.

Psychological safety is important for a collaborative and innovative engineering culture. When engineers feel safe to voice their ideas and concerns, it leads to better problem-solving, more effective teamwork, and a higher likelihood of pioneering breakthroughs.

4) Continuous Learning and Growth

Continuous learning and growth emphasizes ongoing professional development through mentorship, training, and learning opportunities. It ensures that engineers can grow alongside the company, staying updated with the latest technologies and methodologies.

Examples

• Figma: Encourages ongoing professional development through mentorship, tech talks, and structured onboarding.
• Twilio: Promotes constant learning with mentorship programs, technical discussions, and well-organized onboarding.
• Stripe: Emphasizes continuous feedback and iterative improvement, building a culture of growth.
• Slack: Supports continuous learning through mentorship programs, professional development stipends, and structured onboarding.
• OpenAI: Encourages continuous professional development, offering opportunities for learning, mentorship, and skill enhancement.
• Airbnb: Provides structured onboarding and continuous learning through workshops, seminars, and conference opportunities.

A focus on continuous learning ensures that engineering teams remain competent and innovative. It also enhances employee satisfaction and retention, as engineers feel supported in their career growth and development.

5) User-Centric Focus

A user-centric focus means prioritizing understanding and addressing user needs and experiences in engineering decisions and product development. It ensures that products deliver exceptional value and align with user expectations.

Examples

• Figma: Engineers maintain direct engagement with users to align product development with real-world use cases.
• Twilio: Places the customer at the center of all engineering decisions to deliver maximum value.
• Stripe: All engineering decisions prioritize the end-user’s needs, ensuring products meet user requirements.
• Slack: Emphasizes empathy and creating inclusive, intuitive user experiences.
• OpenAI: Mission-driven to ensure AI benefits all of humanity, aligning engineering efforts with user and societal needs.
• Airbnb: Engineering efforts align with the mission to create a sense of belonging for users, ensuring user-centric product development.

A user-centric approach ensures that engineering efforts result in products that truly meet user needs, enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty. It also encourages the development of intuitive and effective solutions, which build long-term success.

6) Small, Autonomous Teams

Organizing engineering teams into small, autonomous teams creates agility, innovation, and clear ownership. These teams operate independently, allowing for faster decision-making and more focused efforts on specific projects.

Examples

• Figma: Creates small, collaborative teams through team ownership and collaborative feedback.
• Twilio: Maintains small, independent teams of no more than 10 people, promoting agility and clear ownership.
• Stripe: Uses controlled, iterative scaling to maintain small, efficient teams.
• Slack: Organizes engineering into small, independent units, enhancing innovation and ownership.
• OpenAI: Operates like small, independent startups within the larger organization, ensuring focus and agility.
• Airbnb: Structures teams into small groups of 2–10 members, promoting efficient communication and clear ownership.

Small, autonomous teams enable quicker iterations, more effective communication, and greater flexibility in addressing challenges. This structure supports a dynamic and responsive engineering environment, which is critical for innovation and rapid growth.