Someone asked me today about the differences between Google’s and Facebook’s engineering cultures. Based on what I know, here’s what I said:
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1. G’s tech stacks differ widely between products (many teams build their own infrastructure or frameworks), whereas FB favors consistency across teams (eg: 95% of FB’s web properties use the same stack)
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2. G has a stronger culture of “only some people can work on certain code” (OWNERS files, “readability”); FB tries more to encourage cross-team contributions (eg: there are posters with “Nothing at Facebook is someone else’s problem”) – as well as internal mobility
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3. G historically rewarded building technology for the sake of building technology; FB has been more focused on building products and seeing technology only as a means towards that
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Replying to @sophiebits
Google's frontend journey has, in my somewhat disconnected experience, much to do with culture, org structure, and acquisitions.
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Replying to @slightlylate @sophiebits
For most of its life, Google *didn't have* frontend engineers. It was a culture of backend (C++ old-skool, Java nu-skool) that had hired a few folks that could do both and tolerated them doing it.
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Replying to @slightlylate @sophiebits
Things have changed in the past 5 years, but 5 years is less than a quarter of the company's age, and founders weren't interested in frontend. Closure/Soy/GSS powered most properties since ~08, but wasn't staffed.
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All that has changed, teams largely consolidating on one stack, but huge legacy + many-product reality makes sharing something that happens in the breach. Has improved with WC, which ~all systems can consume. But tech doesn't change org structure.
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