Inside Sourcegraph’s Engineering Culture: Part 2

A deep dive into how Sourcegraph works from the perspective of software engineers and engineering managers. Part 2.

Sourcegraph is a code search startup that stands out from many tech companies by applying high transparency to everything it does. This transparency has made it much easier to get a sense of the engineering culture at the company.

I spent weeks in contact with current and former Sourcegraph engineers and examining publicly available sources to share what the engineering culture is like at the scaleup - including details that have previously not been shared. I also sent out clarifying questions to Quinn Slack, the cofounder and CEO of the company.

In Part 1 of the series, we already covered:

1. Introduction

2. Getting things done

3. Hiring

In this second, and final part of this mini-series, we carry on from here and go through:

4. Compensation

• Base salary

• Equity

• Benefits and perks

• External salary transparency

5. Career

• Levels and competencies

• Engineering job levels

• Engineering management

• Product management

• Design

• Performance reviews and promotions

6. Engineering practices

• The tech stack

• Architecture overview

• Testing

• Developer experience

7. Advice and learning

• Advice for software engineers to succeed at Sourcegraph

• Advice for engineering managers to thrive at the company

• Inspiration for founders and engineering leaders to take from Sourcegraph

8. Resources

• Interview loops at Sourcegraph

• Performance review templates at Sourcegraph

As with other deep dives on Facebook/Meta and Amazon, this issue is longer than usual. You might consider treating it as an educational resource for future reference.

4. Compensation 

Compensation at Sourcegraph has 3 components: