I was once assigned as the onboarding buddy for my then-new colleague Jeff. I had been at the company for five years and was almost a founding engineer. I knew the ins and outs of the company. Not only did I mostly know the way we worked, our company culture, our technical stack, and our design choices, but, more importantly, I had the history and context of how things came to be.
Jeff and I were both SRE Staff Engineers, and I took him under my wing. I wanted him to succeed, so every week during the next few months, I shared everything I knew.
One of Jeff’s superpowers is that he has an amazing instinct for company culture, and his observations were always spot-on. Together, we explored things like informal leaders, how our way of organizing had impacted our architecture, what people feared, change processes, the business landscape, our techstack history & visions, engineering maturity, product roadmap history, and more. It was a great time for me, and my collaborations with Jeff allowed me to sharpen my skills in communicating things in the spectrum between culture and tech.
A few years later, I joined a new company. I channeled my inner Jeff and explored how the technological choices and culture was and had come to be. Why does this old code look like this? How does the engineering organization make decisions, and how has that impacted today? Why are we using MongoDB? Where do we want to be with X in a year? Why are the Slack channels so silent? Mostly explored with curiosity in 1-on-1 settings to avoid sounding overly inquisitive or challenging.
I coined this type of work “Sociotechnical Archaeology”. It is the activity of exploring how today’s complex interrelated web of social structures, culture & behaviours, and technical interactions has formed in an historical context. The Archaeology analogy is useful because, similarly to archaeologists, it needs digging to discover how things came to be. Digging is asking questions; Why is this? Why at that time? How was this made? Why wasn’t this done? Who came up with X? How was it decided?
Sometimes, putting a word on something is the biggest breakthrough. The term Sociotechnical Archaeology has helped me to phrase to myself & managers what I am up to. In a way, it is the softer form of glue work.
Ultimately, when this activity has been done well, it has made me a better and more impactful coworker. I know who to talk to, I know what has been tried before, I know how to (not) pitch an idea, I know which type of work the organization rewards, and more. In short, I know how to get things done (without shooting myself in the foot).
Also, Jeff turned into one of my finest friends. Occasionally, we grab a beer and goof out on tech, company cultures, SRE, geeky Linux stuff, and more. If you are ever in Stockholm and enjoy these things, don’t hesitate to reach out and join us! 🍺