General

In this document are some general guidelines and best practices.

The boy-scout rule: always leave the code better than you found it

We believe in the principles of continuous improvement and are constantly striving to improve what we do, how we do it and the impact that it will have on our customers and colleagues. This requires regular measurement, communication and ideation of improvements. There are occasions when leaving it as you found it is ok but that should be a conscious decision. But leaving it worse is not an option!

Release early, release often

We believe in shipping our code multiple times a day to production wherever possible to ensure that we are delivering a constant stream of customer impact and are able to validate with real customers. In order to be able to deliver multiple times a day with confidence we integrate our code as often as possible making sensible use of feature flags to take advantage of automated testing, releasing and validation processes. We deploy to production as soon and as often as possible to ensure the deployment process is robust and scalable.

Hire for attitude, train for skill

We believe that by working with engaged colleagues who want to learn, enjoy feedback and constructively deliver customer and organisational impact is more important than any skill that anyone will bring to our organisation. It is much easier to learn a new skill than it is to change someone’s mindset. We believe in seeking diverse perspectives in order to make more effective decisions. Diversity in thought alongside diverse perspectives enables us to ensure that bias is reduced. Having broad representation of our customer base in our employees enables empathy that supports our drive towards customer outcomes.