Software Engineering Radio - the podcast for professional software developers

SE Radio 609: Hyrum Wright on Software Engineering at Google

66 snips
Mar 28, 2024
Hyrum Wright, Senior Staff Engineer at Google, shares insights on software engineering at Google. Topics include measuring engineering productivity, writing effective test cases, challenges of software engineering at Google, style guides, code reviews, testing techniques, test doubles, Google's testing scale, static analysis power, implementing large-scale code changes, and book feedback.
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ANECDOTE

Unexpected Test Failures from Minor Change

  • Changing a comment line shifted line numbers and caused unrelated test failures at Google due to tests depending on line numbers.
  • This showed even minor code modifications can break tests when observable behaviors are unexpectedly relied upon.
ADVICE

Trust Teams to Solve Problems

  • Great managers focus on what needs to be done, not how to do it.
  • They trust their teams to figure out the best methods, supporting but not micromanaging.
INSIGHT

Software Engineering Is Broader Than Coding

  • Software engineering includes more than just coding: it covers the entire process of building software.
  • Success requires coordination among developers, designers, and other roles beyond programming.
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