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Comment by xyzzy_plugh | Hacker News Reader

It's funny that this is titled "operating well" because the impression I have, from this post and from folks I have encountered or know, is that Stripe does not operate well.

I know of a number of instances where folks left Stripe and took an extended break before doing something else. I've heard a few nightmare on call stories (we all have stories but these sounded really severe/frequent). I've heard folks describe their workload as operational heavy with little opportunity to actually develop software or build things. I've heard a few things that make me wary of past and current middle managers there.

It's funny. I imagine it's possible to have a company full of smart, kind, hardworking people but a culture where operational work is celebrated and embraced rather than solved and reduced.

I've had nothing but good encounters with Stripes and ex-Stripes but something seems off, and this post inadvertently reveals some of that.

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"An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management" by Will Larson also draws from the author's experience at Stripe (among others, and is published by Stripe itself [1]). I guess you can choose to see it as "there are lots of problems at Stripe as shown by the numerous published solutions".. but the transparency is worth something imo.

[1] https://press.stripe.com/

The book draws from the author's experience but it doesn't necessitate that the problems at Stripe were actually solved by what's in the book. The author also draws on experience at Uber and Digg. The author also left Stripe some time after publishing that book.

I always take engineering management advice in books as a "do what I say not what I do" sort of thing. It's rarely the case that companies actually operate as well as the stories published about how well they operate.

> I always take engineering management advice in books as a "do what I say not what I do" sort of thing.

That's pretty true for Will. Too much self-marketing. It doesn’t help his decision to leave Stripe for a failing startup that just laid off 20% of its staff.

>> "An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management" by Will Larson

- Direct link to book mentioned above:

https://press.stripe.com/an-elegant-puzzle

- And collection of reviews/interviews of the book on author’s website:

https://lethain.com/elegant-puzzle-press/

Did Will ever run SRE teams tho? This book applies to engineering teams building software iirc

You're using the engineering definition of operations. TFA is using it in the traditional, business sense of the word. Organizational structure, decision making processes, goal setting, workflow optimization, etc. Think: all the things a COO would be responsible for.

I think the title is a bit misleading. The content seems less about operations and more about execution.

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