Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Facebook Bootcamp Slogans

From the link: http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1163373--a-look-inside-facebook-s-bootcamp-for-new-employees?bn=1

“You have people coming into the company — they are engineers, but within the week, you are allowing them to change a part of the product that then becomes visible to millions of users,” said an employee. “One thing that really surprised me was how open the culture is. It seems there are no secrets inside.”

An early lesson in Bootcamp is that it’s fine for any employee to walk up to Zuckerberg or Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg to talk about an engineering problem or a company issue.
“That is actually very hard to teach people,” Seligstein said.
But it is a significant lesson.

“What makes (Facebook) flat is that Zuck is very hands-on with the product,” Goldfein said. “When he wants to find out what’s going on in his organization, he doesn’t go talk to the VP, who talks to the director, who talks to the manager, who talks to the engineer. Zuck goes and talks directly to the engineer.”

THE “HACKER WAY”:
CEO Mark Zuckerberg and others at Facebook believe the company’s culture is an important element of its success. A look at some of Facebook’s key internal values:
Egalitarian: Facebook lacks hierarchical titles like “principal engineer” or “senior engineer.”
Flat: At no time should there be more than three layers of management between an engineer working on a product and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Even for a major product like Facebook’s new Timeline feature, engineering teams begin as a dozen people or fewer.
Just Do It: Engineers are expected to tackle problems on their own accord, to build a prototype that fixes a problem, rather than debating how to do something, or spending too much time trying to get it perfect.
“Hackathons” and “Hack-a-months”: Every few months, Facebook engineers pull an all-nighter called Hackathon, trying out software ideas that sometimes turn into real products. Employees are encouraged to do temporary tours with other product teams, something called “Hack-a-month.”

FACEBOOK SLOGANS
Starting with Bootcamp, Facebook recruits are exposed to a series of slogans that are intended to encapsulate the company’s values. Among the sayings posted on red-letter posters around any Facebook office are:
•Move Fast and Break Things
•What Would You Do If You Weren’t Afraid?
•The Foolish Wait
•Our Work Is Never Over
•We Hack Therefore We Are
•Are You Fearless?
•Done Is Better Than Perfect
•Code Wins Arguments

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