How GitHub Works: Creativity is Important

http://zachholman.com/posts/how-github-works-creativity/

by mcos • 15 years ago

124 19 15 years ago

So.. All of the flexibility and asynchronous working styles, and no enforced hours.. but still no remote hiring? I'm really confused about why we don't see more companies supporting remote working.

holman• 15 years ago

We actually have employees all over the world- Europe, Australia, the US (naturally). And we'd certainly consider hiring globally, but there's some great technologists in SF and we'd just prefer it if you lived/moved out here. Nothing wrong with having preferences. ;)

Amokrane• 15 years ago

Does a teetotaler still have a chance to be working for GitHub? (given he is great by the way). By reading your posts, I feel like it is a non negotiable requirement and that it's basically impossible to be awesome without drinking.

Other than that, keep it on. I really enjoy reading your posts!

rtomayko• 15 years ago

I don't think we have any strict non-drinkers but there's definitely some lightweights (cough Holman cough) so I think he'd be fine. ;)

thurn• 15 years ago

I've actually worried before about not drinking being a social handicap at today's hip tech startups. It certainly makes bonding with the rest of your team more difficult if their primary social venue is the bar.

thematt• 15 years ago

I would be honest with them but if you're that concerned about "fitting in"...just order a soda. If somebody asks, tell them you prefer mixed drinks and that it's a rum and coke. Nobody will know the difference.

andycroll• 15 years ago

I can vouch for the githubbers that I have met liking a beer or three.

But it's not a 'sports team' deal it's more of a 'relaxed' or 'enjoy work' approach to life and work. The cultural fit of the company seems to be very important.

skeletonjelly• 15 years ago

It's GitHub week on HN!

mattlong• 15 years ago

You can tell a lot about someone (or some company) by the beer they drink. What do you have on tap right now?

mattdeboard• 15 years ago

I've heard Michelob Ultra and Blue Moon

technoweenie• 15 years ago

I think Firestone Ale and Racer 5. We change it up each time.

jwingy• 15 years ago

I hear Guinness is great on tap if temperature controlled properly. Like night and day from the bottle to the tap. Unfortunately I've only had the bottled version (and I find it ehhh).

pwaring• 15 years ago

"We bleed friendship and work together, so it’s hard to tell when we’re discussing work and when we’re chatting over beers"

Isn't that potentially a bad idea from a work/life balance point of view? I like to know at the end of the week that I'm free to do my own thing - feeling compelled to go out drinking with co-workers and talking about work-related subjects would stop me relaxing, and would be bad for my productivity in the long run.

JonLim• 15 years ago

If they're anything like the web dev shop I work in, absolutely not. We're free to grab drinks after work and we're free to go home, there's never any pressure to join.

I assume GitHub is all that and a bag of cookies - you can join and chat and build relationships with people, but under no circumstances is a gun held to your head.

Chances are, if you work there and you enjoy the environment, you'd WANT to go out for drinks with them!

snitko2• 15 years ago

I was reading it and thinking that I was like that. I used to think "meh, measuring work in hours". It felt especially disgusting when your employer did it. But then I discovered a tiny widget called "Timer" and it really made me think carefully of how I waste my time and helped me to keep track of my productivity. You just sit, start the timer and get to work, no excuses. My impression now is that it would actually be useful, not harmful, to track employees time carefully - and use it not as a final judgement, but rather as another source of data for analyzing efficiency.

After I read this article I started thinking about effectively tracking time. I realized the best approach would be to do it seamlessly, so that I wouldn't have to actually start/stop the timer and write down task names. And so I googled this app which seems to be doing exactly this (for the teams too): http://app.chrometa.com I think it would probably show a very interesting data, especially in a team of developers, which would lead to some adjustments in how people work. Too bad I'm on Ubuntu 90% of my time now, I'd probably try it.

cpfohl• 15 years ago

What you're saying is true if 'wasting time' was actually a problem. How often, though, in the course of reading a random news post or checking Twitter for the 478th time that day, do you realize the reason your program segfaults, or figure out to solution to making your application more modular and flexible?

While not an ideal use of your time, developers rarely stop thinking about the problems they're working on.

Now excuse me, I think I have an idea I need to go try out! ;)

snitko2• 15 years ago

I agree, that's why I suggest to not use time tracking as a final metric. I argue though, that such stats would show some interesting and not very obvious tendencies.

How GitHub Works: Creativity is Important

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