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collaboration

9. Collaboration & Communication​

Bike4Mind operates with a distributed, asynchronous-first engineering culture designed to support high autonomy, clear accountability, and effective cross-functional coordination. Collaboration is structured to ensure transparency, reduce overhead, and maintain continuous alignment between product, engineering, and client-facing teams.

Global Engineering Teams​

The engineering organization is distributed across three regions:

  • Austin (US)
  • Cebu (Philippines)
  • Kyiv (Ukraine)

This distributed model provides near-continuous coverage for support, development, and operational incident response, while also enabling follow-the-sun productivity.

Teams are typically composed of 3–6 members, with access to shared QA, UX, DevOps, and product management resources. Functional alignment (e.g., front-end, back-end, full-stack) is supported but not siloed.

Communication Channels​

  • Slack is the primary communication platform, with structured channels for:

    • Engineering discussions
    • Feature triage
    • Client-specific collaboration
    • Deployment and incident notifications

  • Loom is used for asynchronous video walkthroughs:

    • Feature demos
    • Code review supplements
    • Bug reproduction or design explanations

  • GitHub is the canonical source of truth for all code, issues, and project tracking:

    • Pull requests are the default mechanism for proposing changes
    • Issues are required for all bugs, features, and refactors

All communication is designed to be low-friction, auditable, and asynchronous by default.

Project and Task Management​

  • GitHub Projects (kanban boards) are used for sprint and backlog management:

    • Columns include: Backlog, Prioritized, In Progress, In Review, Done
    • Issues are labeled by priority (P0–P3), type (bug, feature, chore), and owner
    • Engineering leads are responsible for triage and prioritization within their domains

Sprint planning, issue grooming, and cross-team syncs occur on a weekly or bi-weekly basis depending on team size and workload.

Documentation and Knowledge Sharing​

  • All architectural decisions, patterns, and internal processes are documented in:

    • GitHub README files
    • Internal Notebooks hosted within the Bike4Mind platform
    • Structured Slack threads with permalink indexing

  • Developers are expected to document major feature rollouts, refactors, and technical investigations via written summaries or Loom videos

  • Onboarding materials are maintained and updated quarterly to reflect evolving platform architecture and processes

Feedback and Decision-Making​

  • Retrospectives are held at the end of each sprint and after any high-impact incident
  • Feedback is shared openly and constructively, with an emphasis on resolving systemic friction rather than assigning blame
  • Engineering leadership maintains an open-door policy for raising concerns, proposing improvements, and initiating experiments

This collaboration model supports scalable development, rapid iteration, and effective coordination across time zones—while maintaining a strong emphasis on clarity, traceability, and shared ownership.