Once upon a time, our CEO Jaime was finishing his Master’s thesis about looking for clones in the code. The year was 2012, and from that moment, the idea for Codacy began taking form.
After discussions on the best path to follow, our company officially started in October 2013. Thus, eight years ago, we were on the road to shaping the automated code reviews world.
Step by step, Codacy has developed and gradually expanded. Fast forward to 2021, and we now support more than 40 programming languages and help developers save thousands of hours in code reviews and code quality monitoring.
Today, Codacy consists of 40+ highly motivated and passionate people who want to help developers ship better code, faster.
Codacy in numbers
Wondering what 8 years of code reviews look like? Here are some numbers for the data-curious in you:
- 247 054 users have joined our platform;
- 77 305 organizations have been created;
- 425 205 repositories have been added;
- 588 552 671 commits have gone through Codacy.
If we look into a more recent time frame, since March 2021:
- 10 million issues have been found (yes, that many!)
- 4 million issues have been fixed by developers (yey to you!)
Looking back at the past 8 years, we couldn’t be happier with where Codacy is right now and where we’ll be in the future. We’re more than a platform for automated code reviews, software quality standardization, and tackling technical debt.
8 lessons from the past 8 years
In the course of the last 8 years, we’ve evolved and accumulated experience. Each year made us grow and taught us incredible things that we now want to share with you. So here are 8 lessons that we’ve learned along the way.
#1 – Customers show us the path to success
It’s essential to have a clear vision for the future of our company and the products we want to develop. But let’s not forget that no company can survive without customers, so we need to listen to them carefully. Customers will tell us – both directly and indirectly – what will make our products successful and can even open doors to build a brand new product. In the end, understanding our customers allows us to craft outstanding products that they crave.
#2 – Empower customers with a community
When we created the Codacy Community Forum, our vision was clear. We wanted to foster a global community of developers who support, challenge, and inspire each other on the path to higher code quality. The community connects developers with our product experts at Codacy, and it’s a platform for networking, support, and fun. We also see it as a way to let our customers know that we hear their ideas and concerns. So, if you are not part of the community yet, what are you waiting for? Join the conversation today. See you on the other side!
#3 – Data is King, but action is God
As a company, we need to understand what is working and what needs improvement to adjust the course along the way. Establishing metrics and key indicators will allow us to keep improving and adapting as we grow. However, agility and speed are everything. We can’t get lost in an endless cycle of data and analytics unless we incorporate them into an action plan.
#4 – Properly onboard new employees
Hiring the right people for the right job is enough, right? Wrong. We’ve seen that a solid onboarding process can help improve new hire retention and productivity. Plus, having a buddy or mentor system can go a long way. The mentor works closely with the new joiner and can explain how day-to-day tasks are done, introduce them to relevant people, and any other topic that might be important to the newcomer. Employee onboarding is the first experience a new joiner has as an official member of the company, and it’s all about embracing people from day one.
#5 – Improve communication and across teams collaboration
Good communication saves us time, reduces errors and misunderstandings, and creates a better work environment for teams to be successful. For communication to be effective, it involves active listening, asking powerful questions, and being honest but kind. Plus, the line of communication with leadership should always be open, and no one must feel that their opinions are not being heard. We’re generally used to the traditional top-down and bottom-up communication, but lateral collaboration across teams is also fundamental. This way, there is an alignment between teams, and we know we’re all rowing in the same direction.
#6 – Create a learning environment
We’re focused on building a culture that naturally embraces learning since continuous evolving is part of our core. We know that investing in people pays the best interest. That’s why we implemented the learning & development, a budget to enable personal growth that will make us evolve both as individuals and as professionals. We also foster opportunities for peer-to-peer learning with our weekly lunch-and-learn (everything’s better with food!), and we encourage a lifelong learning mentality.
#7 – Give employees flexibility
The COVID-19 pandemic confirmed our belief that time and space flexibility is the road to follow. We’ve always supported remote work, but we now have a remote-first policy. We maintain our office space because it is valuable as a work environment, collaboration zone, and social area. But we do not expect our team to work from the office, and we are focused on flexibility in lifestyle and schedule. We know co-location does not translate into better results or increased productivity. We encourage our teams to enjoy the environment that suits them best.
#8 – Working with friends is much more fun
We have a growing team of people with different backgrounds, skills, and ways of thinking. This diversity is what makes us great and helps us transform ourselves and the world around us. We enjoy getting to know each other, with our particular quirkiness, outside of the workplace. So, we organize team-building activities, have weekly happy hours and monthly board games sessions. A team that has fun together grows together.
A toast to you and the next 8 years
Our journey is just beginning, both for Codacy and for our incredible community. After 8 years of growth, we can’t wait for what’s in store for the next 8!
We want to thank you all: those who’ve been with us since day one, and those who are joining the Codacy community at this very moment. It’s because of all of you that we exist.
