A Day in the Life of a Mobile Product Engineer at Slack
Article Summary
Kevin, a Staff Engineer at Slack, shares how a distributed mobile team ships features across Vancouver and San Francisco without stepping on each other's toes. His secret? Strategic work separation and dogfooding daily builds.
This detailed walkthrough follows Kevin's day as an Android Product Engineer on Slack's Messaging team. From morning standup with SF counterparts to afternoon Office Hours, he reveals how Slack's mobile team maintains velocity while growing 3x in size.
Key Takeaways
- Daily dogfood releases via Play Store catch bugs before users see them
- Office Hours 3x weekly minimize disruptions and enable cross-team mentoring
- Strategic UI/infrastructure work splits let distributed teams move in lockstep
- Design Workshops with stakeholders prevent future-proofing oversights across pillars
- Front-loaded effort early in projects eliminates frantic shipping pushes
Critical Insight
Slack's Android team scaled 3x while staying high-functioning through structured collaboration rituals, daily dogfooding, and strategic work distribution across time zones.
