Public Tech Company Handbooks
Comprehensive directory of 90+ companies with public handbooks, tech stacks, and engineering documentation
- Full Company Handbooks (20)
- Substantial Public Handbooks (18)
- Culture Decks & Values (13)
- Engineering Handbooks & Tech Stacks (12)
- Public Tech Radars (9)
- Engineering Playbooks & Frameworks (9)
- Engineering Blogs with Stack Documentation (10)
- Curated Lists, Open Guides & Resources
Full Company Handbooks (20)
Comprehensive, GitLab-style handbooks covering operations, culture, policies, benefits, engineering, and more.
| Company | URL | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| GitLab | handbook.gitlab.com | 13,800+ pages. The gold standard. Covers every aspect of the company. |
| PostHog | posthog.com/handbook | 15 chapters. Radical transparency on strategy, compensation. Dedicated tech stack page: React, Django, Rust, ClickHouse, Kafka, Temporal. |
| 37signals / Basecamp | basecamp.com/handbook · GitHub | 14 chapters + 9 appendices. No more than 40hrs/week, async-first. Stack: Ruby on Rails, Hotwire. |
| Sourcegraph | handbook.sourcegraph.com · GitHub | Company strategy, team structure, engineering processes, all departments. |
| Mattermost | handbook.mattermost.com | Full handbook for the open-source messaging platform. |
| Fleet (FleetDM) | fleetdm.com/handbook | Inspired by GitLab. Covers company, engineering, marketing, people ops. |
| Cal.com | handbook.cal.com | Open startup with public salaries, metrics, and full handbook. |
| Airbyte | handbook.airbyte.com | Full handbook for the open-source data integration company. |
| Remote.com | handbook.remote.com | Engineering career paths, detailed policies. |
| Doist | handbook.doist.com | Makers of Todoist & Twist. First public handbook released Dec 2025. Remote since 2007. |
| Rocket.Chat | handbook.rocket.chat | Open-source communications platform. |
| Open Core Ventures | handbook.opencoreventures.com | GitLab CEO's venture studio. Includes handbook template for startups. |
| Novu | handbook.novu.co | Open-source notification infrastructure. Public KPIs, roadmaps. |
| Strapi | handbook.strapi.io | Open-source headless CMS. |
| Human Made | handbook.hmn.md | WordPress enterprise agency. |
| CivicActions | guidebook.civicactions.com | Government digital services. Forked from 18F handbook. |
| TTS / 18F (GSA) | handbook.tts.gsa.gov · GitHub | US government Technology Transformation Services. |
| Sparksuite | handbook.sparksuite.com · GitHub | Simple, clean employee handbook. |
| Niteo | GitHub | Full company handbook on GitHub. |
| Resend | resend.com/handbook | 35 posts on engineering, design, support, and marketing. |
Substantial Public Handbooks (18)
Meaningful public documents — not as exhaustive as GitLab's, but still substantial references covering multiple aspects of the company.
| Company | URL | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Glitch | glitch.com/~handbook | Built as a Glitch app. Remixable. |
| Bonusly | GitHub | The "un-handbook" — minimal and anti-bureaucratic. |
| Clef | GitHub | Influential early open-source handbook. Frequently forked. |
| Made Tech | GitHub | UK digital services agency. |
| Mondora | GitHub | Italian B-Corp tech company. |
| MUI (Material UI) | Notion | Open-source React component library operations. |
| Warp | Notion | Modern terminal company. "How We Work" guide. |
| hospitable | Notion | Applicant-facing handbook. |
| sophilabs | Notion | Software development consultancy playbook. |
| Loomio Cooperative | loomio.coop | Worker-owned cooperative handbook. |
| DXW | playbook.dxw.com | UK digital agency playbook. |
| Tidepool | GitHub | Open-source diabetes technology. |
| Nylas | GitHub | Email/calendar API platform. |
| CG Cookie | GitHub | 3D art education platform. |
| HolidayExtras | GitHub | Travel tech company culture docs. |
| Trussworks | guide.truss.works | Government technology consultancy. |
| Hotjar | Confluence | Behavior analytics. Public Confluence pages. |
| Armory | go.armory.io/iterate | Continuous deployment company. |
Culture Decks & Values (13)
Public culture documentation — not a full handbook but provides significant insight into how these companies operate.
| Company | URL | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Netflix | jobs.netflix.com/culture | The original culture deck. 20M+ views. "Freedom & Responsibility." |
| HubSpot | hubspot.com/culture-code | 128-slide Culture Code manifesto. |
| Valve | Famous comic-book-style handbook. Flat hierarchy. | |
| Tesla | Scribd | The "Anti-Handbook Handbook" — intentionally brief. |
| Buffer | buffer.com/salaries · Open dashboard | Public salaries since 2013. Open salary formula, revenue dashboard. |
| Atlassian | atlassian.com resources | Career resources and team playbooks. |
| Cleo | meetcleo.com | Public performance philosophy. |
| Dropbox | Virtual First Toolkit | Open-source toolkit for distributed work. |
| Trello | Built as a Trello board | Employee manual dogfooding their own product. |
| Okta | rewards.okta.com | Public rewards and benefits documentation. |
| Infinum | infinum.com/handbook | Digital agency handbook: dev practices, design, culture. |
| HashiCorp | works.hashicorp.com | How HashiCorp works as a remote-first company. |
| Osio Labs | Blog post | Split: public handbook (tenets) + private ops manual (sensitive). |
Engineering Handbooks & Tech Stacks (12)
Companies that publish detailed engineering handbooks or dedicated documentation of their tech stack, architecture decisions, and tooling choices.
| Company | URL | Stack Highlights |
|---|---|---|
| PostHog | posthog.com/handbook/engineering/stack | Frontend: React, Redux, Kea, Ant Design. Backend: Django, Rust. Data: PostgreSQL, ClickHouse, Redis, Kafka. Orchestration: Celery, Temporal, Dagster. CI: GitHub Actions, Playwright, Pytest. |
| Infobip | GitBook handbook | Full engineering handbook: tech stack & architecture, code & deploy practices, observability, self-managed teams, career dev. 40+ datacenters worldwide. |
| Wise | 2025 Stack Update | Backend: Java, Kotlin. Frontend: Next.js (CRAB), React. Mobile: Kotlin/Compose, Swift, KMP. Data: MariaDB, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, Snowflake, Iceberg. Infra: K8s (RKE2), Terraform, ArgoCD, Envoy. ML: SageMaker, MLflow, Ray Serve. LLMs: Claude, Bedrock, Gemini. Observability: LGTM stack. |
| Artsy | GitHub README | React, Relay, TypeScript, GraphQL, Palette design system. Open Source by Default. |
| Figma | Engineering blog · Values | Frontend: React, TypeScript, C++. Backend: Ruby, Go, TypeScript. LiveGraph (custom real-time DB). |
| Microsoft ISE | Engineering Playbook · GitHub | Open-source playbook. React, TypeScript recommended. Covers design reviews, CI/CD, observability, testing. |
| Raycast | Public docs | Vue.js, Gridsome, Vercel. Node.js, Express, Heroku. Linear, GitHub, Slack, Notion. |
| dwyl | GitHub | PETAL stack: Phoenix, Elixir, Tailwind, Alpine.js, LiveView. PostgreSQL. Detailed rationale with diagrams. |
| Spotify | Engineering blog · Backstage | Created Backstage (CNCF internal developer portal). Tech Radar plugin. Core principle: "The fewer technologies we are world class on, the faster we get." |
| Canva | canva.dev/engineering | Backend: Java, Kotlin, Python, Scala. Frontend: React, TypeScript. Data: Snowflake (25+ PB, 90M queries/month). |
| Uber | Tech Stack Part I · Part II | Python, Go, Java, Node.js. Schemaless (custom on MySQL), Riak, Cassandra. Docker, Mesos, Aurora. |
| Mercury Works | GitHub Pages | Dev handbook: culture, code style, UX design, front-end, back-end. |
Best for stack documentation: PostHog (dedicated /engineering/stack page), Wise (periodic Tech Stack Update posts with 60+ technologies), Infobip (full GitBook engineering handbook), Uber (two-part blog series).
Public Tech Radars (9)
Tech radars visualize a company's technology choices across rings (Adopt, Trial, Assess, Hold). Living documents showing stack decisions and rationale.
| Company | URL | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| ThoughtWorks | thoughtworks.com/radar | The original Tech Radar. Updated biannually. Industry-wide techniques, tools, platforms, languages. |
| Zalando | opensource.zalando.com/tech-radar · GitHub | Open-sourced the visualization tool — used by Spotify, Porsche, and many others. |
| Spotify | Via Backstage | Tech radar via Backstage plugin. Languages, frameworks, infrastructure, processes. |
| Porsche Digital | opensource.porsche.com | Forked from AOE. Multiple radar instances across divisions. |
| Einride | einride.engineering | Autonomous EV trucking company. |
| AOE | aoe.com/techradar | Open-sourced their radar framework. v8 has 230 entries from 44 authors. |
| Software AG | techradar.softwareag.com | Enterprise software company radar. |
| Digitec Galaxus | galaxus.ch/techradar | Largest Swiss online retailer. |
| Babbel | tech.babbel.com | Language learning platform. Methods, patterns, and tools. |
Build your own: Fork Zalando's tool or AOE's framework. Backstage has a tech-radar plugin.
Engineering Playbooks & Frameworks (9)
Public engineering-focused documentation — career frameworks, technical playbooks, and development practices.
| Company | URL | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| thoughtbot | thoughtbot.com/playbook | Legendary playbook. Planning, designing, developing, running software. |
| Monzo | GitHub | Open-source progression framework. Stack: Go, K8s, AWS, 2,800+ microservices. |
| Fly.io | fly.io/docs/hiring | Working at Fly.io, company levels, team structure. |
| Oxide Computer | RFDs | Public RFDs for transparent decision-making. Stack: Rust, custom hardware. |
| Basecamp Communication | basecamp.com/guides | Internal communication practices guide. |
| 37signals Dev | dev.37signals.com | "How we do, what we do." Stack: Ruby on Rails, Hotwire, Turbo, Stimulus, Kamal. |
| Google Engineering Practices | Eng Practices · SRE Book | Code review guidelines. Also published SRE Book and Software Engineering at Google (free online). |
| Platform Engineering Playbook | platformengineeringplaybook.com | K8s, Terraform, AWS, Docker, observability. 150+ technology resources. |
| Ramp Builders | builders.ramp.com | Ramp's engineering blog. Deep fintech architecture posts. |
Engineering Blogs with Stack Documentation (10)
Companies that publish extensive engineering blog posts documenting their architecture, stack decisions, and technical practices — goldmines for understanding real-world tech choices.
| Company | URL | What They Document |
|---|---|---|
| Netflix | netflixtechblog.com | Java, Spring Boot, gRPC, Cassandra, GraphQL Federation. Chaos engineering (Chaos Monkey). |
| Stripe | stripe.com/blog/engineering | Ruby, Java, Go, Scala. API design patterns. AI coding agent harness. |
| Airbnb | Airbnb Engineering | React, TypeScript (migrated from JS via LLMs), Ruby on Rails, Java. Built Visx, Epoxy, Lottie. |
| Shopify | shopify.engineering | Largest Rails app. React Native. AI-first engineering playbook (LLM proxy, 20% productivity gains). |
| GitHub | github.blog/engineering | Ruby on Rails, Go, MySQL (Vitess), React. Actions architecture, Copilot internals. |
| Intercom | intercom.com/blog/engineering | Ruby on Rails, Ember.js, React Native, Elasticsearch. |
| Monzo | monzo.com/blog | Go, K8s, AWS, Cassandra, 2,800+ microservices. Migrations at scale. |
| Atlassian | atlassian.com/blog/technology | Java, Kotlin, React, PostgreSQL, AWS. |
| Twilio | Twilio Engineering | Cloud communications, API design, ML. |
| Grafana Labs | grafana.com/engineering | Go, React, TypeScript. LGTM stack (Loki, Grafana, Tempo, Mimir). |
Find more: kilimchoi/engineering-blogs (500+ company blogs) and awesome-engineering (handbooks + blogs + repos).
Curated Lists, Open Guides & Resources
Best aggregation points for discovering even more handbooks and tech documentation.
| Resource | URL | What It Covers |
|---|---|---|
| awesome-handbooks | GitHub | The definitive curated list. 34 companies and counting. |
| cossmedia/company-handbooks | GitHub | Open culture company handbooks collection. |
| awesome-open-company | GitHub | Open salaries, metrics, processes — not just handbooks. |
| Handbook Directory | Buttondown newsletter | Newsletter collecting public (and leaked) handbooks. |
| HN Thread | Hacker News | 100+ comments with handbook links from the community. |
| kilimchoi/engineering-blogs | GitHub | 500+ company engineering blogs. Best for finding stack docs. |
| awesome-engineering | GitHub | Engineering blogs, handbooks, and OSS repos from top companies. |
| Tech Radar Examples | workingsoftware.dev | Catalog of public tech radars: ThoughtWorks, Zalando, Porsche, etc. |
Open Guides & Remote Work Resources
| Company | URL | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Zapier | zapier.com/learn/remote-work | 180-page Ultimate Guide to Remote Work. 800+ person distributed team. |
| Automattic | automattic.com | 100% distributed (WordPress.com). Internal "Field Guide." Biannual transparency reports. |
| Doist (remote work) | doist.com/how-we-work | Detailed remote-first documentation. |
| Family | benji.org/family-values | Startup values and operating principles. |
| Holloway | holloway.com/g/remote-work | The Holloway Guide to Remote Work — free reference. |
Research compiled June 6, 2026. Total: 90+ unique companies across 8 categories.