How Graphite Cultivates High-Agency Engineering Teams

How Graphite Ships

TLDR: Graphite builds its elite engineering team by fostering a culture of "high-agency," where engineers own problems end-to-end. This is achieved through a lean product management structure, relentless dogfooding (including randomly deleting employee accounts), and a strong preference for simple, "boring" technology choices.

Summary: In an era where the impact of AI is reshaping engineering practices, Graphite, the creator of the popular dev tool for stacked changes, offers a compelling case study in building a high-performance team. Greg Foster, the co-founder and CTO, details a culture centered on creating "high-agency" engineers. This means developers are not just coders but true owners who take problems from conception to resolution. This approach is enabled by a remarkably lean structure, with only about two product managers for over thirty engineers. The engineers themselves fill the product gap, talking directly to stakeholders and driving features forward. This is made possible, in part, because Graphite's engineers are also its primary users, creating a powerful, built-in feedback loop.

A cornerstone of their culture is relentless dogfooding. New features are used internally for weeks and only shipped when they are voluntarily adopted by the team. To ensure this practice doesn't fade after initial onboarding, Graphite employs a radical technique: "onboarding roulette." Every day, a random employee's account is deleted, forcing them to experience the product from a fresh perspective and ensuring the onboarding process remains smooth and efficient. This intense focus on the user experience, even at the cost of internal convenience, is a powerful lesson in maintaining product quality.

Graphite's philosophy extends to its technology choices, embracing what some might call "boring" tech. They use a monorepo, a single language, and Postgres for nearly everything. This deliberate simplicity reduces cognitive load, making it easier for engineers to take on broad ownership. Instead of chasing the latest trends, they prioritize a stable, well-understood stack that enables them to ship quickly and reliably. This runs counter to the prevailing winds of microservices and polyglot architectures, suggesting that for many teams, simplicity is a strategic advantage that unlocks speed and ownership.

For architects and team leads, Graphite's approach offers several key insights. First, empowering engineers with ownership and direct customer contact can lead to higher productivity and fulfillment, even if you're not building a dev tool. The principle of closing the gap between the builder and the user is universal. Second, "boring" technology can be a superpower. A simplified, consistent stack reduces complexity and enables developers to focus on solving business problems rather than wrestling with infrastructure. Finally, while radical practices like deleting accounts may not be universally applicable, the underlying principle of forcing regular, fresh encounters with your own product is a valuable discipline for any team that wants to stay user-focused. The article implicitly challenges the notion that innovation requires complex technology; at Graphite, innovation comes from culture and process.

Key takeaways:

• High-Agency Culture: Engineers are given end-to-end ownership of problems, reducing handoffs and increasing engagement.
• Lean Product Management: A small PM team forces engineers to step into product roles and connect directly with users.
• Relentless Dogfooding: Features are tested internally for weeks, and "onboarding roulette" (deleting random accounts) ensures the user experience is constantly re-validated.
• Embrace Boring Technology: A simple, monolithic stack (monorepo, single language, Postgres) is a deliberate choice to reduce cognitive load and increase shipping speed.
• Simplicity as a Strategy: Graphite's success suggests that operational simplicity and developer agency can be more impactful than adopting the latest complex technologies.

Link: How Graphite Ships 🚢