Starting an Engineering Blog

Problem

The company wanted to start creating more credibility among developers, and also a more effective way to introduce itself to potential candidates.

Actions taken

So I've done this at two different companies. In one case I became the owner of the blog, in the other I found one of the engineers to own the blog. We asked other engineers to contribute ideas and worked with managers to give them time to write. We targeted roughly one blog entry per month or even once every two months, and looked for areas where the companies were working on interesting challenges. Additionally, we brainstormed and wrote some special posts that were more introductory in nature about the company and the larger engineering challenge the company is solving. This helped potential candidates not just get appreciation for specific challenges, but for things like the organizational structure, high-level architecture and operations infrastructure.

Lessons learned

• Planning out editing schedule and getting commitment from engineers ahead of time helps them plan and ensure their manager is on board.
• Offering editing services to the writers can encourage people who otherwise would not write, and improve overall
• Pretty much all companies are doing something they can share with the larger world.
• Engineering blog helps, but it is only one of many tools you need to attract top talent.
• The blog is not only a way to share your knowledge with the larger world, but also a great way to store knowledge. It's great to be able to say to a new hire - "read this blog"
• Having a blog encourages a culture of knowledge sharing and improves writing skills
• Some companies, especially ones selling services to other developers, have been able to use their blog to attract more attention to and evangelize their products to potential customers.
• Having a blog saves time with some of the candidates who read it, and enables them to ask more interesting questions beyond the basics.