When your engineering team spans the globe, a simple code review can stretch into a 24-hour ordeal. For example, a developer in Tokyo submits a pull request at 2 PM their time, but their reviewer in San Francisco is already offline and heading to bed. By the time the engineer in San Francisco reviews and requests changes, Tokyo’s workday is over. This cycle repeats, turning what should be a quick review into a multi-day bottleneck. While flexible/asynchronous work arrangements have opened up the global talent pool of software engineers, they've also introduced new challenges to established development practices like code review.
Costs of distributed development
What begins as simple time zone differences can cascade into other challenges that impede engineering velocity, such as:
- Communication gaps: Asynchronous messaging can result in lost context and slower decision-making.
- Longer feedback loops: Gathering comprehensive feedback on code or project updates asynchronously takes longer, which complicates quick iterations.
- Deployment delays: Extended review times can push back deployment schedules, as waiting for reviews and tests delays the entire process.
These challenges can lead to technical debt and negatively affect developer productivity, velocity, and satisfaction, but luckily there are tools designed to help distributed teams work smoothly and efficiently.
Graphite for distributed teams
Graphite addresses the specific needs of distributed teams by providing a platform that simplifies and accelerates the code review process. Here are some of the things you can do with Graphite to work together better with your teammates, even if you’re halfway around the world from each other:
1. Stack pull requests to parallelize development and reviews
Using Graphite, developers can stack pull requests, allowing them to segment their work into manageable parts, push changes up for review as they go, and never be blocked waiting for feedback. This means the San Francisco team can keep working and adding to the stack without having to wait for a colleague in Tokyo to review, keeping the project moving around the clock. When Tokyo wakes up they can review each PR in the stack, and Graphite’s tooling will help the SF team apply the requested changes to everything they’ve built on top. Stacking keeps engineers unblocked and productive across locations and time zones.
2. Get real-time feedback with Diamond
Whenever a developer submits a pull request, Diamond delivers actionable, context-aware feedback in seconds. Your distributed teammates may not be online, but Diamond is always on standby to find bugs, nits, codebase style inconsistencies, and more. By the time your team wakes up, your PR will be polished and ready for a quick LGTM.
3. Level up communication with Slack notifications
Graphite's Slack integration sends real-time, context-specific notifications on PR activities like review requests, comments, mentions, and status changes to keep code reviews moving forward. You can even review small changes without ever leaving Slack, making it easier than ever to unblock your teammates.
Graphite’s real-world impact
Graphite has increased the productivity of distributed engineering teams at companies like Asana. Within the first month of implementation, Asana’s eng teams saw a 21% boost in code shipped and a 17% increase in merges thanks to Graphite’s stacking capabilities and automated git commands.
Engineers at Ramp also benefited from making the jump to Graphite. After implementing Graphite, Ramp's engineering teams saw the median time between merged PRs drop from 10 hours to just 3 hours, which translates to a 74% improvement in merge velocity. Plus, engineers reported saving 1-2 hours per week previously spent on git management, which they can now direct toward meaningful development work
Take the next step
Your global engineering team has enough challenges without adding workflow friction. To begin simplifying async code reviews, minimizing wait times, and accelerating deployments, distributed teams can start using Graphite right away. Here’s how:
- Schedule a demo to see Graphite in action with your workflow
- Start a proof of concept with a single distributed team
- Test Graphite out with a 30-day free trial
- Check out our documentation for more information on getting started
Don't let time zones dictate your development velocity. Join leading engineering teams at Asana, Ramp, and others who have transformed their distributed development workflow with Graphite.