Our Engineering Manifesto

I'm building a company called WORC. I didn't want to build this company. I needed to.

I see a world in which millions of Engineers around the planet work together. They should be able to share ideas and build things together without worrying about licensing or interoperability. These Engineers should not be forced to live in silos or hierarchies formed around vestiges like educational tracks and company structures.

The future I see lets RF Engineers share their analyses and documentation with Mechanical Engineers. These things should directly drive decisions that the Software Engineering team makes. This isn't really just "sharing" — it's working together. So let me reframe: I see a future in which Engineers can actually work together.

If this does not sound like a big deal, consider that we aren't really doing it right now. The world around you is shaped by painful abstractions around work, and it's not in service of the work. Imagine what the world could look like if Engineers focused on Engineering and working with other Engineers.

Do not believe the snake oil salesmen. The future is not requirements-driven or AI-only-driven. It's driven by people. People make decisions using tools, but those tools end up forcing Engineers to make decisions they don't want to make. If you do not believe me, consider the last time you were stuck staring at a computer screen at 1 AM, wishing you were at home with your family but your CAD package couldn't figure out how to link a profile tolerance to a hidden line in a drawing.

This example tells you exactly what is wrong with Engineering right now. The Engineer didn't choose the CAD package, the profile tolerance, the need for the drawing, or the requirements. But they could.

Consider whether the code written for the computers of the time to get man to the moon was the best way to do it. How much time could have been saved with modern tools? What would that impact have been?

This is the problem I need to solve.

How am I going to fix it?

WORC will focus on:

• Developing people who are focused on being the best at their craft. I have not left anything out of this statement.
• Creating products that reduce clerical overhead and increase allowable analytical complexity for Engineers.
• Thriving on constructive disagreement to define truth and how it will impact the product and the Engineer.

To support this, I've:

• Saved as much money as I could to try to skip funding until Series A. This is to retain as much control of the company as possible to ensure I'm making the right decisions for Engineers.
• Structured the company to reduce hierarchical overhead in exchange for communication overhead. Truth dies in hierarchy.

Why does this need to be done?

Engineers are not a commodity or resource — they are the actual product. Products are the reflection of the people who make them. A majority of Engineers' time is spent on documentation and communication toil. Low-impact, clerical work that sucks their time away from the art of Engineering. If this is true, then by proxy, the future will be better if I focus on making their tools better and enabling Engineers to focus on the things that make them better.

Now what?

When the product launches in a couple weeks, you may be underwhelmed. That's okay. I will be too. I want it to be better. It will be better. But have patience and use it anyway. You using it will help me make it better. There's a feedback button. Use it.

It will not be paywalled. It will be free to use and share. The only thing you will pay for is features that are already free but that I can't afford to pay for in the limit. My goal is to keep the base product free so that users from students all the way to Engineers doing state-of-the-art work get full access to the same thing. What will the world look like when this is true?

I called this "Our Engineering Manifesto," but there is no "Our" yet. There will be. If you're hyper-focused on being the best at what you do and want to surround yourself with people who share that goal, reach out. We are hiring anyone with this drive. I can teach you how to code, but you have to want to be the best. I can't teach you that.

This manifesto is Part One of what WORC will eventually become. I will write more about that once we're ready for it.

Again, I didn't set out to build this company, but I need to. That doesn't mean I won't take it seriously. It's the most serious thing I've ever worked on. I think the art of Engineering is a beautiful thing and spending one's time perfecting it is a great thing to do.