Code as Craft: Building a Strong Engineering Culture

The Internet is awash in advice and passionate debates about the relative merits of source code repositories, databases, programming languages, methodologies, and the general mechanics of building software, but there are relatively few meaningful discussions about culture. A strong culture can overcome almost any set of poor technical decisions, but a poor culture can’t be saved by using the best technology. IBM’s Lou Gerstner once said, “culture isn’t just one aspect of the game—it is the game.” With that in mind, what makes a great engineering culture and what practical steps can a leader take to build a great one? In this talk, you’ll hear about the tragedies and triumphs of the cultural journey at Etsy, and what we learned along the way.

Chad Dickerson is CTO at Etsy.