Thawar calls pair programming the most underutilized engineering management tool
Farhan Thawar · How Shopify builds a high-intensity culture | Farhan Thawar (VP and Head of Eng) · Dec 19, 2024 · at 22:31
Farhan Thawar, Head of Engineering at Shopify, argues that engineering organizations underutilize pair programming despite its velocity and code quality advantages.
0:00 / 0:06exact quote · 6.4s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“It is the most underutilized management tool in engineering. Bar none. Like, it is just not used as much as it could be.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Farhan Thawar
Shopify executes company reorgs in two weeks without formal change management
“So if you're doing something monumental, like, I don't know, you're doing like a reorg or something, right? You can do it the slow way. Let's like sit down and plan and roll it out. And it's probably like six months in most companies. Shopify, this is like a w…”
Shopify randomly deletes all recurring internal meetings with over two people annually
“Once a year at a random time, we will delete All recurring meetings that have more than two people, so not one-on-ones, and are internal people only, so not interviews or external partner meetings. And then we have a two-week moratorium where you're not allowe…”
AI coding tools will reach engineer-level only when they delete code
“What I want to see is GitHub Copilot deleting one million lines of code. Like that's when, you know, we're actually at this point where this is close to an engineer.”
Thawar: Companies without multiple projects on fire are not pushing hard enough
“I think if you don't have like two or three big projects that are on fire, you're probably not pushing hard enough because you're not really trying things that are outside of your, like, if everything's going well, are you really trying, are you really taking …”
Thawar eliminated scheduled one-on-ones while managing 120 direct reports at Xtreme Labs
“I did two things famously. One, I had a lot of direct reports and two, I did not do any scheduled one-on-ones because you can't have a 120 direct reports and do scheduled one-on-ones cause you're never doing anything but one-on-ones. So I said, I'm going to be…”
Thawar instantly resigns without job offers when his framework is violated
“When I realize that my framework is being violated, I will resign like instantly. And I've done that before. So without even having another job or anything, I just go like, oh, my framework is being violated and then resign.”