Video (in french) at https://youtu.be/rrlPhedNjbA Elastic, who develops the popular Elasticsearch, Kibana, Logstash and Beats open source tools, is a "remote first" company. This presentation explains how our distributed software engineering team of 270 people works, and the culture behind it.

1. ‹#›
Sylvain Wallez - @bluxte
DevFest Toulouse, 2017-09-28
From50to270:Scalingadistributed
engineeringteam

2. Who'sthisguy?
Software Engineer - Elastic Cloud
Previously tech lead, CTO, architect, trainer...
...at OVH, Actoboard, Sigfox, Scoop.it, Joost, Anyware
Member of the Apache Software Foundation since 2003

3. Whoarewe?
Kibana
Elasticsearch
Beats Logstash
Security
Alerting
Monitoring
Reporting
X-Pack
Graph
Elastic Cloud

4. Whoarewe?

5. Whoarewe?
600elasticians

6. Whoarewe?
600elasticians
32countries

7. Whoarewe?
600elasticians
270engineers
32countries

8. Whoarewe?
600elasticians
270engineers
32countries
100+milliondownloads

9. Thefounders:2012
Shay Uri Simon Steven

10. Nextfewhires:

11. Nextfewhires:CFO??

12. 6
DistributedBy
Design

13. ‹#›
Adistributedsystemisasoftwaresystemin
whichcomponentslocatedonnetwork
computerscommunicateandcoordinatetheir
actionsbypassingmessages

14. Elasticsearchthesoftware,
wasdistributedfromday1

15. Whatdoesadistributedsoftware
anddistributed,opensource
companyhaveincommon?

16. Lots

17. ‹#›
Distributedsystems:
communication
11

18. Asynchronous
Communications

19. Email:Filtersincluded
Timezone friendly

20. Email:Filtersincluded
How we reached a decision

21. Emailtransparency

22. 15
Someemailbecomehistory

23. 16
Reply-allisfun!

24. 17
Emailsbecomet-shirts

25. 18
Loveisintheair

26. 18
Loveisintheair

27. 18
Loveisintheair

28. GitHuballthethings

29. 20
@mention someone
directly on
GH issue instead of
discussing
in Slack

30. 21
GitHubfornon-techstuff

31. Synchronous
Communications

32. 23
Join any room
Technical discussions in public
Public communication will educate everyone
Post a summary to email or GitHub

33. 24

34. 25
Meetings

35. 25
Dev Standups
25
Meetings

36. 25
25
Dev Standups
Collapses
25
Meetings

37. 25
25 50
Demo DayDev Standups
Collapses
25
Meetings

38. 25
25
Table Group
50 70
Demo DayDev Standups
Collapses
25
Meetings

39. 25
25
Table Group
50 70
Demo DayDev Standups
Collapses Collapses
7025
Meetings

40. 25
25
Table Group Black Belt
Session
50 70 140
Demo DayDev Standups
Collapses Collapses
7025
Meetings

41. 25
25
Table Group Black Belt
Session
Cross Product/
Per Product
Sync
50 70 140 200
Demo DayDev Standups
Collapses Collapses
7025
Meetings

42. 26
Meetingsareopen:devcal

43. 27
Zoomvideoconferencing

44. 28
Persistentzoomsession
AlwaysOnZoom:hopon,hopoff

45. 29
Recordmeetingsforposterity

46. It'snotjustvirtual

47. Engineeringall-hands:2xayear

48. Engineeringall-hands:2timesayear
Vision, long term plans
Talks from CEO, VPs and investors
2 days team time
1 day cross product
1 day fun activities

49. Engineeringall-hands:meetingswithaview!

50. Engineeringall-hands:funday!

51. 35
dev process
Agile, Waterfall

52. 36
Consensus based

53. ‹#›
GitHubtotrackthings

54. ‹#›
FunwithGitHublabels

55. 39
Jira-ifyingGitHubwithWaffle.io

56. 40
PullRequests:PeerReview

57. 41
LGTMs == ACKs

58. Releases

59. 43
Before:Independentreleases

60. Timebasedreleases

61. 45
ReleaseProcess:Timebased
x.y.z —> major.minor.patches

62. Release:Trainanalogy

63. ReleaseProcess:Timebased
Merge when ready and scalable
Otherwise catch the next train
No pressure on devs for pushing features

64. 48
Teamdynamic

65. How’stheorgstructure
Flat org
Self organising teams
Highly available

66. 50

67. Hirethebesttalentfromanywhere
Globallydistributed

68. Anodehasmanyroles

69. Engineers arenodes

70. Engineers areevangelists

71. Engineers writeblogs

72. Engineers dosupport

73. Engineers writedocumentation

74. Engineers haveautonomy

75. 54
node
discovery
node
looking for other
nodes in elastic

76. 55

77. Hiring
“how many golf balls fit in an airplane ?”

78. Hiring
“how many golf balls fit in an airplane ?”

79. Hiring
No puzzle questions
Each team has different interview styles
Technical and team fit for distributed
environment

80. Nodesareindependent

81. 59
0
10
20
30
40
50
0-3 3-6 9-12 12-15 15-18 18+
Averageexperience

82. OnBoarding:Mentoring
Day 1
High touch mentoring
Mentor != Manager

83. OnBoarding:X-School
Week-long orientation in Mountain View, CA
Meet team leads, product team
Big Picture: Understand business functions

84. 62
Takeaways

85. Keytakeaways
Transparency & openness

86. Keytakeaways
Trust by default

87. Keytakeaways
Don’t build processes around mistakes

88. Keytakeaways
Progress over perfection

89. Inclosing…
They say it won’t work at 50, 100, 500..

90. Questions?

91. Moreresources
Initially presented as OSCon, Austin: https://conferences.oreilly.com/oscon/oscon-tx/public/schedule/detail/56992
https://www.elastic.co/elasticon/conf/2016/sf/inside-elastic-engineering
https://www.elastic.co/elasticon/conf/2017/sf/on-distributed-systems-and-distributed-teams
https://zachholman.com/posts/how-github-works/
Fonts and slide design were inspired by Zach Holman: https://zachholman.com/posts/slide-design-for-developers/