Thirteen years remote at GitHub: what works
6 min read
When I joined GitHub in 2013, I found a company that had rethought how work happens. Thirteen years later, those lessons still shape how I work.
My GitHub years
I worked at GitHub from 2013 to 2026. These 53 posts describe how it worked while I was there, so GitHub may do things differently today. Start with what to read before starting or interviewing at GitHub.
2026 (1 post)
2023 (3 posts)
Meetings are a point of escalation, not a starting point
3 min read
Most meetings are just information downloads that could've been a doc. Treat them as an escalation based on complexity, not the default starting point.
How to write a great extended leave document
5 min read
A battle-tested template for handing off your responsibilities before extended leave, so your team stays unblocked and nothing falls through the cracks.
Manage like an engineer
8 min read
If issues, pull requests, and project boards are the best way to develop software, should they not also be the best way to manage software development?
2022 (2 posts)
The seven things a corporate Chief of Staff does
12 min read
Seven core responsibilities that define the corporate Chief of Staff role, from tactical office management to strategic advising.
Leaders show their work
10 min read
Great leaders don't just communicate decisions. They explain how and why. Without that context, every decision sounds like "because I said so."
2021 (2 posts)
Nine things a technical program manager does
9 min read
What does a technical program manager do? Nine things, from cross-team coordination to risk, by a product manager who helped found GitHub's TPM org.
Octoversary: eight years of optimizing for developer happiness
9 min read
Reflecting on eight years at GitHub, from GeoJSON rendering and GitHub Pages to trust and safety, open source licensing, and 200,000 words of blogging.
2020 (9 posts)
Budget for the hidden "internet tax"
9 min read
Trust and safety is a cost of doing business on the internet. If you're building a platform, budget for abuse protection before someone gets hurt.
How I manage 200+ GitHub notifications a day
7 min read
My GitHub notifications setup: read the web inbox in batches, send @mentions to email, filter the rest in Gmail, and unsubscribe from threads often.
Tools of the trade: How I communicate at GitHub (and why)
7 min read
How I choose communication tools at GitHub, from issues to Slack and Zoom, and why the tool you pick matters as much as what you say.
Automate common open source community management tasks
5 min read
Never force a human to do what a computer can. How to automate code review, issue triage, and maintainer workflows to scale your open source community.
Seven ways to set open source contributors up for success
5 min read
Seven practical ways to set contributors up for success before they open their first issue, from the contributor funnel to being responsive.
Eight tips for working remotely
10 min read
Tools alone won't make remote work succeed. Eight cultural rules for effective async communication, regardless of your industry or role.
User blocking vs. user muting
9 min read
Why GitHub's approach to user blocking diverges from other social networks, and what's different about moderating a code collaboration platform.
10 lessons learned fostering a community of communities at GitHub
13 min read
What GitHub's Community and Safety team learned building a trust and safety framework to help maintainers grow healthy, open source communities.
Resolutions for sustaining and growing open source communities
6 min read
Four resolutions for being a better open source community member, from reducing your bus factor to being a gracious dinner party host to your contributors.
2019 (2 posts)
A community of communities: Empowering maintainers to grow communities around their code
1 min read
My OSCON 2019 talk on GitHub's approach to empowering maintainers to grow safe, welcoming open source communities that scale alongside the code.
What lawyers can learn from open source
1 min read
How lawyers can adopt the workflows, tools, and philosophies of open source to make their legal practice more remote-friendly.
2018 (1 post)
Why you probably shouldn't add a CLA to your open source project
13 min read
CLAs create a hostile developer experience, require significant overhead, and are usually unnecessary given modern open source norms.
2017 (4 posts)
Everything an open source maintainer might need to know about open source licensing
12 min read
There's lots of internet lore around open source licensing. An attorney and open source developer answers the most common questions.
Twelve tips for growing communities around your open source project
13 min read
Publishing code isn't enough. Twelve practical tips to attract users, welcome contributors, and grow a healthy open source community.
Seven ways to consistently ship great features
6 min read
The best developers don't just write code. They over-communicate, ship the smallest delta, and optimize for users over maintainability.
Three easy ways to show employees they're appreciated
5 min read
Small gestures like recognizing birthdays, work anniversaries, and life milestones go a long way, especially when there's no water cooler.
2016 (6 posts)
Eight things I wish I knew my first week at GitHub
11 min read
Tips I shared with every new GitHubber, from shipping something in your first two weeks to pushing through the inevitable overwhelm.
The seven habits of highly effective GitHubbers
10 min read
Seven traits I've observed in successful GitHubbers over the years, from shipping early and often to the appreciation economy.
Removing a feature is a feature
7 min read
Features aren't free. Every time you remove one that doesn't serve your core use case, you're adding an implicit feature that does.
Books for geeks
1 min read
A curated reading list for developers who care about more than just code, covering technology, open source culture, and the business of software.
Twelve things a product manager does
10 min read
What does a product manager actually do all day? After six months of note-taking, here are 12 responsibilities from user advocacy to strategic thinking.
Optimizing for power users and edge cases is the easy part
5 min read
Stop optimizing for power users and edge cases. The real challenge is nailing the out-of-box experience for 80% of users.
2015 (12 posts)
The six types of pull requests you see on GitHub
3 min read
Not all pull requests are equal. Six distinct strategies for using pull requests on GitHub, from quick heads-ups to deep reviews.
Four characteristics of modern collaboration tools
13 min read
The best collaboration tools share four traits: open, linkable, asynchronous, and process-capturing. Are you working the way you'd like?
Why everything should have a URL
15 min read
When knowledge lives in people's heads and inboxes, it doesn't scale. Giving decisions and processes URLs makes context discoverable, async, and opt-in.
How GitHub uses automated testing to empower developers to write less-corporate blog posts
4 min read
Instead of relying on editors to catch marketing speak, use automated tests and CI to enforce voice, tone, and style guidelines on your corporate blog.
The Zen of GitHub
3 min read
Call it taste, culture, or zen. Every organization has shared assumptions that guide decisions and resolve ambiguity in pursuit of its mission.
Speak like a human: 12 ways tech companies can write less-corporate blog posts
11 min read
Your users don't care how excited you are about your new feature. Twelve rules for writing corporate blog posts that sound human.
Using GitHub Pages to showcase your organization's open source efforts
7 min read
A step-by-step guide to creating a branded, customizable developer portal for your organization's open source projects using GitHub Pages and Jekyll.
Five best practices in open source: external engagement
14 min read
Publishing code isn't enough. Open source means building communities. Five best practices for engaging contributors and growing your project.
Five best practices in open source: internal collaboration
9 min read
You can't foster open source publicly while running a closed-source culture internally. Five best practices for internal collaboration.
Diff (and collaborate on) Microsoft Word documents using GitHub
4 min read
Word Diff automatically converts Word documents to Markdown when you commit to GitHub, so they can be diffed, versioned, and collaborated on like code.
What does your organization optimize for?
4 min read
Every organization is optimized for one thing. A glance at someone's laptop stickers reveals whether yours optimizes for people or process.
Hacking GitHub: 14 simple tools to help introduce open source to the uninitiated
3 min read
14 open source apps I built to help non-technical users collaborate on GitHub, from Word-to-Markdown conversion to simplified issue forms.
2014 (9 posts)
Geeks and suits
7 min read
In government IT, change depends on geeks and suits. Yet despite being in an industry built on communication, they rarely talk.
15 rules for communicating at GitHub
15 min read
How GitHub used issues and chat for async communication: fifteen rules that eliminate the 'you had to be there' problem in corporate workflows.
What is a Government Evangelist?
3 min read
What a GitHub Government Evangelist does: help agencies ship software better and bring Silicon Valley practices to Washington.
Eight reasons why government contractors should embrace open source software
8 min read
Eight reasons government contractors should embrace open source, from free advertising and better code to attracting top talent.
If you liked it then you should have put a URL on it
7 min read
Every decision deserves its own URL, one that captures what was decided, who made the call, and why. Give your content a permanent home.
Disclosed source is not the same as open source
3 min read
Publishing code without fostering community is disclosed source, not open source. True open source is a two-way relationship.
Three things you learn going from the most bureaucratic organization in the world to the least
7 min read
Three lessons from moving from the federal government to GitHub: trust, happiness, and treating relationships as assets.
Why FedRAMP actually makes it harder for government agencies to move to the cloud
10 min read
FedRAMP was supposed to make cloud adoption easier for federal agencies. Instead, it's making it harder to keep pace with the private sector.
Open source, not just software anymore
8 min read
Open source has always been about the right to modify, not contribute. As those workflows spread beyond software, we may need a new word.
2013 (2 posts)
Jekyll: Where content is truly king
2 min read
Choosing Jekyll over a traditional CMS for government.github.com freed us to spend six months iterating on what mattered most: the content.
Friction
5 min read
Friction, the time between wanting to contribute and actually contributing, is the only metric that matters for open source.