Cloud Engineering Team Ways of Working

Team principles#

  • We put security first. Security is everybody’s job, not owned by a single team
  • DevOps is a culture, not a team. You can still be a DevOps engineer while building your product
  • We want to upskill people for the future. We learn from each other, and everyone has a role to play
  • We will innovate and prove success with data. We are empowered and protected; we can fail fast, but we are accountable for what we do
  • We use open-source, community-driven solutions. They are documented and simple to understand so they can be easily reused and iterated by anyone

Team values#

  • We follow best practices. We automate, and deploy as frequently as possible
  • We’re not afraid to ask for help. We know we don’t know it all
  • We learn. This team is a learning experience and we share our knowledge
  • We celebrate our achievements. We listen and give feedback
  • We trust each other. We know what our roles are, and value everyone’s contribution

Preferred tooling#

  • We use open-source tools where possible to avoid vendor lock-in
  • We use Terraform by Hashicorp for Infrastructure as Code
  • We use native AWS tools where that is appropriate

Coding standards#

  • Terraform: link to be provided
  • Python: see this guide

Branching strategy#

  • We create a new development branch for new pieces of work, and ensure it is reviewed by a peer before it’s merged into Master
  • Where possible, branch names will start with the JIRA ticket number for the piece of work, e.g. CE-1234
  • We apply branch protection and code owners

PR process#

Change and release#

  • We make sure that our changes to the platform are properly documented, reviewed, and planned
  • We do our best to minimise disruption to end users. See the full process for details