Scout24 Engineering Values and Principles

About

Welcome to v3 of the Scout24 Engineering Values and Principles (previously "Scout24 IT Principles").

The motivation for documenting our values and principles is to have a common understanding of what is important in how we approach engineering in the Scout24 group and its subsidiaries ImmobilienScout24 and AutoScout24.

Aside from this readme, there are two documents which are best read in order:

1. Engineering Values. These are high level statements of what we value across Scout24 engineering.
2. Engineering Principles. These are the more concrete behavioral outcomes of our values.

Within these documents, there is no intentional ordering for the purposes of emphasis or priority. You should read each value and principle as being of equal value to those above and below.

Changes

As noted above, this is v3. Those with a math(s) background will deduce there must exist a v2. Those people would be right and v2 can still be found here.

Versions 1 & 2 were authored by the staff at AutoScout24 and emphasized what was important to that team in 2016. v3 reflects how we’ve evolved and was co-authored by the Principal and Distinguished Engineers at Scout24, AutoScout24 and ImmobilienScout24 with significant input from their colleagues across the engineering organization.

Compared to v2, v3 has significant differences in content and structure:

• We have introduced explicit "values" for engineering across Scout24, AutoScout24 and ImmobilienScout24. These values drive our updated principles.
• We have reformatted the text into paragraphs with more detail. This formatting also allows easier contribution through clearer diffs in pull requests.
• Due to the increased content, we've put the values and principles in their own files. The principles include references to the motivating values.
• The most prominent content changes compared to v2 are:
  • Numerous references to the "platform". We want to take advantage of Scout24's scale for greater efficiency through use of common platforms.
  • Emphasis on the importance of people movement and being able to work on multiple stacks.
  • As a result of the above, we've placed greater emphasis on the value of a broad skillset and deemphasized mastery.
  • Removal of prescribed team structures.
  • Removal of "mobile first". We no longer need to make this statement as it is taken for granted.
  • Rewritten explanations of the values/principles that remain common between v2 and v3.
• This readme is now just a readme.

How to interact

These documents contain contributions from across all levels of Scout24 engineering. We'd like to continue maintaining them in that way so...

• If you have a question, create an issue.
• If you have a suggestion, create a pull request.

Issues and pull requests will be reviewed by the Principal and Distinguished Engineers in the Scout24 group, who are responsible for keeping this up to date, and you'll get feedback. Too easy!

License

Creative commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)