I've been at PostHog for four years. After having the best four years of my career at Co-op Digital, I'm privileged to have then also had the best four years of my career at PostHog. Surely, I've learned something that I can cram into a cliche format?!

• Don't look for a family, look for a team
• Talk to users all the time
• You can YOLO and strangle your figs at the same time
• Trust is a super power

Don't look for a family, look for a team

The more I've experienced this, the more I'm convinced it's genius.

At home, for sure, look for (and build) an environment where you are unconditionally accepted and celebrated, But at work, look for a group formed around a shared (probably competitive) purpose.

A team is somewhere folks expect the best from me and they expect me to own my part in achieving that. They also help me to get there. But I have to own it for me.

Being surrounded by people who reinforce your good behaviours and model good behaviours you can learn from is 💯. Enough so, that I can't imagine being willing to accept an environment without that now I've had it.

An old colleague would share a video of Barcelona football team. Multiple times someone would score and the player would celebrate. Soon another player would come over, tap them on the shoulder, and they'd go back to the game. They knew that the behaviours that correlated with success were important and they had little rituals to reinforce them. In this case, "don't celebrate too long, we're still playing, we need more goals, and we don't get them by celebrating".

At PostHog the company values are used the same way. Like the Barcelona shoulder tap, they're not just aspirational words on a page. They're the behaviours we see correlate with success and reinforce by living them, and by holding each other accountable to them.

Talk to users all the time

I have never once regretted talking to our users. Either on tooterweb, in support tickets, in a user interview, or asking for email / screenshare feedback. It is hands-down the best thing. It has consistently levelled up what I've been able to do at PostHog.

I used to get frustrated with teams using user stories that would write "as a user" and would push them to have a particular group of users in mind. I don't like the trad user story format. But if you are using it try and think of the group of users: "as a busy shopper" or "as an owner of a small business". But a million times better IMHO is "Sam wants…" or "Jane couldn't…". Not an imaginary Sam or Jane. People you have talked to, that you can empathize with, and follow-up with.

The important counterpoint is that just building everything users ask you for is not the goal. Understanding their needs and problems and how it shapes and relates to your instinct for the product is the goal.

The classic example of this is that when users say something is cluttered they are only rarely asking to see less information, instead they are really asking to see different information.

You can YOLO and strangle your figs at the same time

Two of the things I've loved about working at PostHog…

One) it is totally fine to push something to prod, discover its a mistake, and fix forward or rollback. So long as it is done with purpose - it's not fine to be careless but it is fine and desirable to be bold.

Two) it is also totally fine to change something slowly over multiple releases. Increasing the mix of traffic to a new feature until you are confident it is ready for everyone.

Often people talk about a company culture as if you have to choose between these things, but you don't. You can drive your car in different gears on different slopes. Choosing the approach that is right for the situation.

Trust is a superpower

My first pull request at PostHog was before I started. A change to the docs to increase the budget for an engineering laptop purchase because the cost had gone up. Then buying the laptop. All before I'd met anybody or had my first day.

The default was to expect me to do the right thing and assume that I would.

Similarly, when I wasn't sure what to work on after I'd started. I booked user interviews with customers. Talked to them, and then decided what to work on. No approval process, no fuss, no need to queue on anybody else, nothing in my way.

Or in my second week when the kids were ill and I said I wouldn't be able to work that day but would "catch up on Saturday". Marius, the tech lead said: "that sounds stupid, take the day off". No worries that I would hack the system and take too much time off.

And, honestly, most every day since then. It is incredibly motivating and rewarding to be trusted to do the right thing.

(yes, "do the right thing" is loose and open to interpretation, but that's the great thing about trust, i can interpret what the right thing is)

The thing that works so well alongside this is a culture of feedback. I've been told when I've done well, and when I've not. And then trusted to take that information and do the right thing with it.

Things I've learned that didn't make the cut of the four in four cliche format

• typescript enums are useless, just use string union types
• writing tests is the best, writing the fewest tests for the most benefit is besterer
• react was a mistake, but there's no good alternative yet
• a one word copy change can have a 100x impact on clickthrough rate
• giolitti is the best gelato in rome