Tag: BookofRedgate

I have said and written this many times: Redgate Software is the type of company I’d want to build if I founded another company. It’s a great place, and one of the things I appreciate is that we value outcomes.

One of our values is:

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What you achieve is more important than how long it takes.

Building software is challenging, and building software that can be sold is difficult. We’ve had lots of successes and some not-successes. However, we work towards building the software and celebrate the achievements.

However.

If you’ve built software, you know it usually takes longer than expected and people want it sooner. Many teams know me as the “do it faster” guy. I know software takes time, but I also know that in the business of selling software, we need focus on things that are useful and valued by customers.

I don’t complain that it takes too long to build everything, but I do press on the focus to get the important things done first, which aren’t always the fun or easy things.

Ultimately we as a company appreciate when we have something done and working for customers. We don’t go back and lessen the importance of the effort because of the time it took. We do look to see if we can do better in the future, which is something I’d hope most software engineers would do.

I have a copy of the Book of Redgate from 2010. This was a book we produced internally about the company after 10 years in existence. At that time, I’d been there for about 3 years, and it was interesting to learn a some things about the company. This series of posts looks back at the Book of Redgate 15 years later.

We aren’t the only company that does this, but Redgate Software does try to be data driven. Across my 18 years, I’ve had plenty of people use evidence from customers, from usage data, from market research, and more to justify a decision.

I think Google and quite a few other companies have called this being “data-driven.”

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not on people’s opinions, the volume of their voices or who they are. When the evidence changes, we are prepared to change our minds. We will thank, and never shoot, the messenger.

I will say that this has skewed a bit over time, as I find that evidence is subject to interpretation and I’ve certainly seen some people cherry picking evidence to support their decision. Sometimes by asking for certain evidence.

However, we did realize there were issues and have tried to correct. I was part of a yearlong project last year that impacted marketing, product, and engineering where we focused on getting more information from more customers, and especially being careful to get evidence from multiple sources, including different geographies. We had a bias to the UK, so we tried to correct for that, and I think we made some strides.

That being said, I haven’t seen us shoot or blame the messenger for bad news, though sometimes thanks are sometimes not as sincere as they could be. I understand, because contrary news tends to dampen enthusiasm.

I have a copy of the Book of Redgate from 2010. This was a book we produced internally about the company after 10 years in existence. At that time, I’d been there for about 3 years, and it was interesting to learn a some things about the company. This series of posts looks back at the Book of Redgate 15 years later.

We are product focused at Redgate Software. Here is another of our values that focused on this:

The text on the next page is:

Shipping something amazing is better than creating something average and to budget and on time. We cannot market, sell, manage or account our way to success.

We have tried to do that. I’ve used many of our products before coming to work for Redgate. My former partners at SQL Server Central used them extensively as well. Since I have been an employee, I’ve worked with a lot of customers who constantly find value in our products.

I think we’ve succeeded, and I think that us trying to build useful software is what has helped. My fellow advocates and I constantly try to bring the voice of the customer to Redgate so that our engineers better understand your challenges. This helps them build things that are useful.

I have a copy of the Book of Redgate from 2010. This was a book we produced internally about the company after 10 years in existence. At that time, I’d been there for about 3 years, and it was interesting to learn a some things about the company. This series of posts looks back at the Book of Redgate 15 years later.

We work hard at Redgate, though with a good work-life balance. One interesting observation for me (as an American) is how well most of the company in the UK works normal hours and rarely works outside of those.

However, sometimes we do find people, especially engineers, heads down and very focused. With our engineers in the office a day or two a week, they might end up coding in a group and trying to solve a challenging issue.

We used to have engineers working more than 8 hours regularly, often late, when they were in the office. I came across this page in the Book of Redgate.

The text below is: Working too hard? Why not relax with a gentle game of ping-pong.

Our offices have always had some game tables. I don’t think we have ping pong in the new office, but we have a pool table near the coffee machines and I’ll see people taking a few minutes to play a game at different times. We also (I think) still have a foosball table.

We have a piano upstairs, and some guitars in the foyer. I usually take a few minutes between meetings and strum some songs. Here’s the view I have most days when I’m in the office, a few minutes at a time.

We’re not afraid of resistant to working hard. We just try to take breaks and find balance.

I have a copy of the Book of Redgate from 2010. This was a book we produced internally about the company after 10 years in existence. At that time, I’d been there for about 3 years, and it was interesting to learn a some things about the company. This series of posts looks back at the Book of Redgate 15 years later.