“One analogy that has really struck me this year with our team is that building a product is like pushing a boulder. You spend all this time pushing the boulder uphill and it’s so hard and it’s so much work. But when you catch on in the market, suddenly you’re running downhill after the boulder, running as fast as you can to keep up.”

“Remember that the numbers don’t lie. Ask them what percentage of the team lives in which cities or time zones. If 98% of the team lives in Waterloo, that’s probably a cool startup, but they’re also probably just hoping to eventually go back to an office.”

“Most people think collaboration is about helping other people, which is important. But it’s also about being brave enough to ask people for help. Many of us don’t out of fear of looking dumb. But I spend the vast majority of my week talking to dozens of startup founders, and every single one of them says that they appreciate when people ask questions early and often.”

“Even though there might have been a lot of discussions before, once you agree on a decision, you have to commit to it and stay connected as an executive team.”

Commit Engineer Martin Jung joined the startup PlaceHolder in 2020 as their first engineer hire. But he didn’t go alone. Martin brought Zero, Commit’s open source tool, a DevOps resource to complement his skills in application development.

We’ve taken the questionnaire that all of our new engineers complete at Commit, and turned it into a lightweight quiz that’s open for anyone to take. You’ll get a high-level summary of the values we think you hold. You’ll also learn which of the largest developer tools startups share those values.

In this latest article on Commit’s learning and development program, Engineering Partner, Pritesh Patel, talks about his personal career journey which led him to take a much needed step back in order to gain perspective.

We talked with Engineer Thiago Araujo about his experiences with our coaching pilot program, part of our ongoing series about Commit’s approach to learning and development.