Engineering Management
Some notes about managing a group of engineers
The Platform team manifesto
As a Platform team, we believe in the following manifesto to guide our work towards achieving our desired engineering outcomes:
- We prioritize a net positive for our software architecture in every epic, ensuring that each deliverable adds value to our overall system and doesn't create technical debt.
- We are committed to successful epic delivery, meeting our deadlines and producing work that meets the highest standards of quality.
- We believe in documented decisions and outcomes, creating a clear record of our thought processes and actions so that we can learn from them and improve over time.
- We hold ourselves to a high standard of overall quality on our team's products, taking pride in our work and striving to produce solutions that meet or exceed our users' expectations.
- We recognize the importance of good peer review, seeking feedback and input from our colleagues to ensure that our work is accurate, complete, and aligned with our team's goals and objectives.
- We embrace collaboration and open communication, recognizing that our team's success depends on our ability to work together effectively and share knowledge and ideas with each other.
- We are committed to continuous improvement, staying up to date with new technologies and methodologies and constantly seeking ways to improve our processes and deliverables.
By following this manifesto, we believe that we can build a strong, effective, and successful team that produces high-quality work and delivers value to our stakeholders.
Public Tech Company Handbooks
Comprehensive directory of 90+ companies with public handbooks, tech stacks, and engineering documentation
Public Tech Company Handbooks
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. |
Public Tech Company Handbooks
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. |
Public Tech Company Handbooks
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). |
Public Tech Company Handbooks
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 Company Handbooks
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.
Public Tech Company Handbooks
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. |
Public Tech Company Handbooks
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).
Public Tech Company Handbooks
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.