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Run Less Software

Intercom, Inc.

by Rich Archbold, Senior Director of Engineering at Intercom. The same is true in software. In this battle, I’ve found a secret weapon hidden within one of our core engineering strategies, an idea called Run Less Software. When I say “execute”, I don’t simply mean the engineering challenges of building something.

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Leveraging Software Platforms

Roman Pichler

Be Clear on What a Software Platform Is. Different people have suggested different definitions for the term software platform. Let me briefly share mine: I view such a platform as a collection of software assets that are used by several products, as the following picture illustrates. But platforms come with potential drawbacks.

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Is your engineering team experiencing alert fatigue? Ask these 8 questions

Intercom, Inc.

Alert fatigue is a common problem among engineering teams that handle operations and maintain infrastructure. The result is lots of semi-meaningful alerts, noise, context-switching, and multitasking for the on-call engineer. We introduced regular alert review sessions for teams dealing with frequent alerts.

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Algolia’s Sarah Dayan on what sets a staff plus engineer apart

Intercom, Inc.

When you reach senior level on an engineering track, you’re expected to be optimal in your hard skill set. You’re autonomous, your code is immaculate, and you have a deep understanding of building and shipping software. Then, four years ago, in 2018, she got a job at Algolia as a software engineer.

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Ask Teresa: Does the Engineer in the Product Trio Need to be the Tech Lead?

Product Talk

Without input from a product manager, a designer, and an engineer, it’s difficult for us to account for the cross-functional perspectives we need to build successful products. However, most companies tend to have more engineers than product managers or designers. Which engineers should participate in trios?

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Building Intercom from home: Software delivery in challenging times

Intercom, Inc.

We’d like to share some insights from what we’ve learned so far about software delivery and operations over the past few weeks of working from home during COVID-19 , and how we as an engineering team have adjusted to this unprecedented, unpredictable situation. New situation, new processes? What do we need to change?

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Product in Practice: Assumption Testing with Engineers at Orion Labs

Product Talk

Engineers are often reluctant to participate in discovery. This is only natural: Through years of bad habits, many of us have shown engineers that we only value them for the code they can write. But there are many reasons why engineers are one of the essential members of the product trio. And this is a good thing.