Efficient scaleups in 2024 vs 2021: Sourcegraph (with CEO & Co-founder Quinn Slack)

Brought to you by:• Paragon: ​​Build native, customer-facing SaaS integrations 7x faster.• WorkOS: For B2B leaders building enterprise SaaS—On today’s episode of The Pragmatic Engineer, I’m joined by Quinn Slack, CEO and co-founder of Sourcegraph, a leading code search and intelligence platform. Quinn holds a degree in Computer Science from Stanford and is deeply passionate about coding: to the point that he still codes every day! He also serves on the board of Hack Club, a national nonprofit dedicated to bringing coding clubs to high schools nationwide. In this insightful conversation, we discuss:            • How Sourcegraph's operations have evolved since 2021• Why more software engineers should focus on delivering business value• Why Quinn continues to code every day, even as a CEO• Practical AI and LLM use cases and a phased approach to their adoption• The story behind Job Fairs at Sourcegraph and why it’s no longer in use• Quinn’s leadership style and his focus on customers and product excellence• The shift from location-independent pay to zone-based pay at Sourcegraph• And much more!—Where to find Quinn Slack:• X: https://x.com/sqs• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/quinnslack/• Website: https://slack.org/Where to find Gergely:• Newsletter: https://www.pragmaticengineer.com/• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/mrgergelyorosz• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gergelyorosz/• X: https://x.com/GergelyOrosz—In this episode, we cover:(01:35) How Sourcegraph started and how it has evolved over the past 11 years(04:14) How scale-ups have changed (08:27) Learnings from 2021 and how Sourcegraph’s operations have streamlined(15:22) Why Quinn is for gradual increases in automation and other thoughts on AI(18:10) The importance of changelogs(19:14) Keeping AI accountable and possible future use cases (22:29) Current limitations of AI(25:08) Why early adopters of AI coding tools have an advantage (27:38) Why AI is not yet capable of understanding existing codebases (31:53) Changes at Sourcegraph since the deep dive on The Pragmatic Engineer blog(40:14) The importance of transparency and understanding the different forms of compensation(40:22) Why Sourcegraph shifted to zone-based pay(47:15) The journey from engineer to CEO(53:28) A comparison of a typical week 11 years ago vs. now(59:20) Rapid fire roundThe Pragmatic Engineer deepdives relevant for this episode:• Inside Sourcegraph’s engineering culture: Part 1 https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/inside-sourcegraphs-engineering-culture• Inside Sourcegraph’s engineering culture: Part 2 https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/inside-sourcegraphs-engineering-culture-part-2—References and Transcript:See the transcript and other references from the episode at https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/podcast—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected]. Get full access to The Pragmatic Engineer at newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/subscribe