A residency that ends well

Since 2020 Code and Soul has worked in residency, meaning one of our teams works inside another company's product every day, as part of its routine. Our longest residency has now passed six years.

Two rules of this format surprise people hiring it for the first time.

The first is that each person is introduced by name before anything is signed. Hiring engineering means bringing people into your own product, with access to the code, the data and the decisions. It makes sense to know who they are beforehand, rather than receiving a generic profile someone will fill later.

The second is that the exit is written down from the start. A transition plan goes with the contract and is reviewed every ninety-day cycle. It says what must be documented, who on the client's team takes over each part, and how the handover works: thirty to sixty days, ending with formal acceptance.

Agreeing on the separation on the same day you agree on the start sounds odd. In practice, it is what makes a company comfortable letting the team stay. A client who knows it can leave without losing anything has no need to leave to prove it.

Everything else follows from those two rules:

• ·the code lives in the client's repository;
• ·the infrastructure lives in the client's account, described as code;
• ·every important decision is written down with its reason;
• ·every month there is a report on what changed and on the team's delivery numbers.

So if the team ever leaves, the system is still standing the following Monday, and whoever comes next understands why things are the way they are.