These best practices are for Shipper Technology (ShipTech) and Shipper Experience (ShipperX) departments, headed by Dariusz Grabka and Cristina Marculescu.
Outside of core policies, Purolator keeps the perspective that "flexibility to do the right thing" is a strength. These are guidelines, not strict rules.
We've framed them in the context of one of the oldest organizational models known to humanity: a crew manning a boat. Navies, pirate crews, merchant marines, and fishermen have developed shared language and practices that are highly applicable to our crews.
Three Core Themes
Crew
The people — who is doing what. Roles, responsibilities, and how we organize ourselves to sail together.
Cargo
The stuff we deliver — what are we doing. The work, the features, the releases we ship to our customers.
Conduct
How we do what we do. The workflows, standards, and practices that keep our craft seaworthy.
Rules of Engagement
Before we dig into the themes, here are the sea-faring principles that guide everything we do.
⏱ Dates are Promises
In our logistics-focused culture, being on time is in our DNA. We set timelines, commit to dates, and measure success by delivering on time. When goals need to be adjusted, it's better to change scope than miss a date.
📢 Work Out-Loud
Shipping crews communicate honestly, loudly, and frequently. In our digital world, asynchronous channels like Teams chats are flexible and tool-supported. It's everyone's responsibility to share whether they are succeeding or need help.
🚢 Own the Cargo
The cargo is our responsibility. We own the delivery and safekeeping of our software and its data — the user and developer experience, performance, security, quality, and completeness. We don't "do things for the business"; we take ownership.
🔄 Keep a Rhythm
Maintain a regular, predictable cadence of delivering something meaningful (monthly or better). Deliveries keep momentum, indicate success for the crew, and reinforce trust with customers and stakeholders.
⚡ Do More With Less
Being scrappy and overachieving is part of our identity. Using modern tools in cross-functional collaboration, individuals can play multiple roles. We take pride in doing more with less, helping each other, and maximizing our performance.
Crew
Team Orientation
ShipTech is organized into four macro teams: API, Web + Mobile, Core + Offline, and Design. We've prepared an orientation guide covering each team's products, repositories, and responsibilities.
RACI
Who is responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed for key activities across ShipTech and ShipperX.
Tools of the Trade
Our approved and recommended tooling — from work management to source control.
Cargo
Design System
Our UI/UX design tooling and component library — the standard look and feel for everything we ship.
TODO: design system reference to be linked here
Software and Architecture Standards
Our standards for development and architecture across the stack.
Releasing
How, when, and the process by which we release software to production.
TODO: release process reference to be linked here
Observing and Supporting
Required support practices, security oversight, observability, hypercare, and app health.
TODO: observability and support reference to be linked here
Conduct
Dev Workflow
The development team's workflow — from ticket to merge to production.
TODO: Jira workflow reference to be linked here
KPIs and Metrics
Our key performance indicators, where to find them, and how to keep them up to date.
TODO: KPIs and metrics reference to be linked here
Planning
Project planning, deliverables planning, and annual plans.
TODO: planning reference to be linked here
Finances (Tooling)
Tooling for watching the money — cloud costs, forecasting, and project costs.
TODO: tooling reference to be linked here (e.g. AWS Cost and Forecast Portal)
Finances (Pods and Project)
Tooling for watching project and pod funding, and processes for securing additional funding.
TODO: pod and project finance reference to be linked here
Hiring and Staffing
Best practices for how and when to bring people onto the team — interview guidelines, and guidance on students vs. contractors vs. FTEs.
TODO: hiring and staffing reference to be linked here