Brought to you by:

• Launch Darkly — a platform for high-velocity engineering teams to release, monitor, and optimize great software. 

• Sevalla — Deploy anything from preview environments to Docker images.

• WorkOS — The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS.

—

On today’s episode of The Pragmatic Engineer, I’m joined by fellow Uber alum, Sabin Roman, now the first Engineering Manager at Linear. Linear, known for its powerful project and issue-tracking system, streamlines workflows throughout the product development process.

In our conversation today, Sabin and I compare building projects at Linear versus our experiences at Uber. He shares insights into Linear’s unique approaches, including:

• How Linear handles internal communications

• The “goalie” program to address customer concerns and Linear’s zero bug policy

• How Linear keeps teams connected despite working entirely remotely

• An in-depth, step-by-step walkthrough of a project at Linear

• Linear’s focus on quality and creativity over fash shipping 

• Titles at Linear, Sabin’s learnings from Uber, and much more!

Timestamps

(00:00 ) Intro

(01:41 ) Sabin’s background

(02:45 ) Why Linear rarely uses e-mail internally

(07:32 ) An overview of Linear's company profile

(08:03 ) Linear’s tech stack

(08:20 ) How Linear operated without product people

(09:40 ) How Linear stays close to customers

(11:27 ) The shortcomings of Support Engineers at Uber and why Linear’s “goalies” work better

(16:35 ) Focusing on bugs vs. new features

(18:55 ) Linear’s hiring process

(21:57 ) An overview of a typical call with a hiring manager at Linear

(24:13 ) The pros and cons of Linear’s remote work culture

(29:30 ) The challenge of managing teams remotely

(31:44 ) A step-by-step walkthrough of how Sabin built a project at Linear 

(45:47 ) Why Linear’s unique working process works 

(49:57 ) The Helix project at Uber and differences in operations working at a large company

(57:47 ) How senior engineers operate at Linear vs. at a large company

(1:01:30 ) Why Linear has no levels for engineers 

(1:07:13 ) Less experienced engineers at Linear

(1:08:56 ) Sabin’s big learnings from Uber

(1:09:47 ) Rapid fire round

—

The Pragmatic Engineer deepdives relevant for this episode:

• The story of Linear, as told by its CTO

• An update on Linear, after their $35M fundraise

• Software engineers leading projects

• Netflix’s historic introduction of levels for software engineers

—

Where to find Sabin Roman:

• X: https://x.com/sabin_roman

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sabinroman/

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

—

References and Transcripts:

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 podcast@pragmaticengineer.com.

Get full access to The Pragmatic Engineer at newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/subscribe