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There are currently plans to do new stuff in Java. A rewrite of the old code base is impossible. Most of your code will be deployed as an experiment, so you ar

by devdas 7y ago

There are currently plans to do new stuff in Java. A rewrite of the old code base is impossible. Most of your code will be deployed as an experiment, so you are more likely to throw away that code instead of refactoring it. Developers can push to production, and are expected to be responsible for the results of that push. It works quite well.

eropple 7y ago
That's not what three former Booking.com folks I know have said. There's a striking unanimity to their descriptions: risk-heavy day-to-day work ("experiments" not being nearly as firewalled as you might hope), a consistent level of incuriosity amongst line developers and their leadership (which, not gonna lie, "new stuff will be in Java in TYOOL 2020" does a lot to buttress), and rotgut technical-debt Perl that will never be rehabilitated (ditto). Also an HR department that plays real hardball if you're not an EU citizen. (I used to work in the travel space, at TripAdvisor, but that was about eight years ago; no other affiliations.)
- rixed 7y ago
  Well, everyone is of course entitled to her own experience, but for what it's worth I think Booking has been one of the most interesting place I've seen, not in small part because of how data driven they are, as opposed to myth driven like most IT business/people. One of their mantra was indeed "we are not an IT company", which I came to understand as "we don't want to hear about how things ought to be done. We do not bow to best practices. We rely on measurements not culture". After a few years in a big corporation where you couldn't change more than 3 lines of code without 2 code reviews and approval from 2 managers, without ever considering the customers or the final product, moving there was such a relief! Usage of a runtime typed, interpreted language for so many loc in production was of course concerning (esp. Perl which syntax and semantic are sometime surprising), but the attitude considering of caring more about measuring and controlling every possible effect than following the best practices of the day is invaluable. This is definitively a place I would recommend to any engineer willing to learn.

by devdas 7y ago

eropple 7y ago

That's not what three former Booking.com folks I know have said. There's a striking unanimity to their descriptions: risk-heavy day-to-day work ("experiments" not being nearly as firewalled as you might hope), a consistent level of incuriosity amongst line developers and their leadership (which, not gonna lie, "new stuff will be in Java in TYOOL 2020" does a lot to buttress), and rotgut technical-debt Perl that will never be rehabilitated (ditto). Also an HR department that plays real hardball if you're not an EU citizen. (I used to work in the travel space, at TripAdvisor, but that was about eight years ago; no other affiliations.)

rixed 7y ago
Well, everyone is of course entitled to her own experience, but for what it's worth I think Booking has been one of the most interesting place I've seen, not in small part because of how data driven they are, as opposed to myth driven like most IT business/people. One of their mantra was indeed "we are not an IT company", which I came to understand as "we don't want to hear about how things ought to be done. We do not bow to best practices. We rely on measurements not culture". After a few years in a big corporation where you couldn't change more than 3 lines of code without 2 code reviews and approval from 2 managers, without ever considering the customers or the final product, moving there was such a relief! Usage of a runtime typed, interpreted language for so many loc in production was of course concerning (esp. Perl which syntax and semantic are sometime surprising), but the attitude considering of caring more about measuring and controlling every possible effect than following the best practices of the day is invaluable. This is definitively a place I would recommend to any engineer willing to learn.