On Technology, Tides, and Organizational Fluency
Why engineering culture is hard and how to navigate it without losing your soul.
Engineering culture is one of those topics that everyone talks about but few truly understand. It’s not just about ping pong tables and free snacks—it’s about how decisions flow through an organization, how knowledge is shared, and how people feel about the work they do.
The Tidal Nature of Tech Organizations
Organizations, much like the ocean, operate in cycles. There are periods of expansion, where new ideas flow freely and innovation is celebrated. Then come the contractions—the efficiency drives, the cost cuts, the “back to basics” initiatives that sweep away the creative debris of the previous cycle.
The key to surviving these tides isn’t to fight them. It’s to understand their rhythm and position yourself—and your teams—accordingly.
Three Principles for Navigating Cultural Change
1. Build Systems, Not Dependencies
When you’re in an expansion phase, it’s tempting to accumulate resources, people, and influence. But the leaders who thrive through contractions are those who’ve built systems that work independently of their direct involvement.
2. Document Everything Worth Preserving
Oral tradition is beautiful in mythology but dangerous in engineering. The decisions you make today, the context behind architectural choices, the lessons learned from failed experiments—all of this needs to be captured in a form that survives personnel changes.
3. Cultivate Portable Skills
The specific tools and frameworks you use today will be obsolete in five years. The meta-skills—systems thinking, clear communication, collaborative problem-solving—these are evergreen.
The Path Forward
There’s no magic formula for building great engineering culture. But there is a path: start with clarity about what you value, create systems that reinforce those values, and be patient. Culture changes slowly, then all at once.
The organizations that thrive are the ones that treat culture as a garden—something that needs constant tending, seasonal adjustment, and long-term thinking. The ones that fail treat it as a machine—something you can optimize once and forget.
Choose the garden.