Netflix is famous for its culture of Freedom and Responsibility, which empowers engineers to choose the best tool for the job. Engineering teams at Netflix can follow the latest industry trends and sometimes they even create them. No one single team is responsible for innovation: does this generate opportunity or waste or both? The Engineering Tools team helps to direct other teams’ experimentation toward new products while preserving their own ability to innovate. This talk will explore the challenges of building and operating a centralized service team in the decentralized microservice world of Netflix. This includes building tools customers love, standing up an effective customer service model, productizing innovations, enabling self-service tooling, and providing consulting services to engineering teams. Mike will share tips on how to effectively establish a “tools team” in your organization.

1. A centralized team in a
decentralized world:
Engineering tools at Netflix
Mike McGarr
@SonOfGarr

15. increase the # of
delighted customers
while decreasing
support waste

16. increase rate of
innovation
while decreasing the
impact of change

17. Customers

18. our customers are
engineers

20. microservices

21. highly aligned, loosely coupled

22. subcultures

23. free market

24. we build products

25. the Paved Road

26. the Paved Road

27. the Paved Road

28. one paved road
does not fit all

31. wide spectrum of needs

32. be your own customer

33. Support

34. you build it, you support it

35. sometimes tools break

36. optimize
communication
channels for customers

37. chat

38. email

39. more than five minutes

40. walk-bys

41. interruptions

42. maker's schedule

43. first responder

44. ad hoc

45. we have avoided
ticketing systems

46. make creating a ticket
easy

48. minimize context switching

49. Innovation

50. tool stagnation
4 tools don't evolve
4 customers want new features
4 "it works, why change it"
4 lacks organization alignment

52. distribute innovation

54. institutionalize innovation

55. "...hiring managers should
staff beyond the bandwidth
needed for known tasks.
1
Daniel Jacobson, Netflix

56. hire beyond your needs

57. make space for innovation

58. Change

59. 2014 migrations
4 Perforce to git
4 Java 6 to Java 7
4 Shard Jenkins
4 Evacuate the data center

60. so we're done...right?

61. 2015 migrations
4 Ant to Gradle
4 CentOS/Precise to Trusty
4 Asgard to Spinnaker
4 Tomcat 6 to 7 (or is it 8, or 9?)
4 Java 7 to Java 8

62. change is the only constant

63. change campaigns

64. targeted communication

65. beyond email
4 hipchat banners
4 posters
4 blesk notifications
4 http://go/migrations

67. evolve your message

68. "Wanted: beta testers"

69. "production ready"

70. "a cure for what ails ye"

71. "deprecation warning: the end is nigh!"

72. "you are the last to go"

73. "let's help you finish"

75. measure change

77. automate change

78. make continuous change
easy

79. understand your customers
develop a customer support model
make space for innovation
make continuous change easy

80. we're hiring
Senior Gradle Engineer - click to apply
Senior Full Stack Engineer - click to apply
email me - mmcgarr@netflix.com

81. image attributions: http://bit.ly/1KrwACQ
github repo: https://github.com/jmcgarr/centralized-teams-
talk