---
title: "ISE Engineering Fundamentals Customer/Partner Engineering Playbook"
source: Microsoft Code-With Engineering Playbook
source_url: https://github.com/microsoft/code-with-engineering-playbook
licence: CC-BY-4.0
domain: engineering
subdomain: microsoft-code-with-playbook
date_added: 2026-04-25
---

# ISE Engineering Fundamentals Customer/Partner Engineering Playbook

An engineer or data scientist working on an [ISE](docs/ISE.md) project...

* Has responsibilities to their team – mentor, coach, and lead.
* Knows their **playbook**. Follows their playbook. Fixes their playbook if it is broken. If they find a better playbook, they copy it. If somebody could use your playbook, give them yours.
* Leads by example. Models the behaviors we desire both interpersonally and technically.
* Strives to understand how their work fits into a broader context and ensures the outcome.

This is our playbook. All contributions welcome! Please feel free to submit a [pull request](https://github.com/microsoft/code-with-engineering-playbook/pulls) to get involved.

> **Note:** If you are reading this on GitHub - head over to [https://microsoft.github.io/code-with-engineering-playbook/](https://microsoft.github.io/code-with-engineering-playbook/) for a better reading experience

## Why Have A Playbook

* To increase overall efficiency for team members and the whole team in general.
* Reduce the number of mistakes and avoid common pitfalls.
* Strive to be a better engineer and learn from other people's shared experience.

## "The" Checklist

If you do nothing else follow the [Engineering Fundamentals Checklist](docs/engineering-fundamentals-checklist.md)! It's here to help follow the Engineering Fundamentals.

## Structure of a Sprint

A [breakdown of sections](docs/the-first-week-of-an-ise-project.md) according to the structure of an Agile sprint.

## General Guidance

* Keep the code quality bar high.
* Value quality and precision over ‘getting things done’.
* Work diligently on the one important thing.
* As a distributed team take time to share context via wiki, teams and backlog items.
* Make the simple thing work now. Build fewer features today, but ensure they work amazingly. Then add more features tomorrow.
* Avoid adding scope to a backlog item, instead add a new backlog item.
* Our goal is to ship incremental customer value.
* Keep backlog item details up to date to communicate the state of things with the rest of your team.
* Report product issues found and provide clear and repeatable engineering feedback!
* We all own our code and each one of us has an obligation to make all parts of the solution great.

## Resources

* [Engineering Fundamentals Checklist](docs/engineering-fundamentals-checklist.md)
* [The first week of an ISE project](docs/the-first-week-of-an-ise-project.md)

## Engineering Fundamentals

* [Accessibility](docs/non-functional-requirements/accessibility.md)
* [Agile Development](docs/agile-development/README.md)
* [Automated Testing](docs/automated-testing/README.md)
* [Code Reviews](docs/code-reviews/README.md)
* [Continuous Delivery (CD)](docs/CI-CD/continuous-delivery.md)
* [Continuous Integration (CI)](docs/CI-CD/continuous-integration.md)
* [Design](docs/design/readme.md)
* [Developer Experience](docs/developer-experience/README.md)
* [Documentation](docs/documentation/README.md)
* [Engineering Feedback](docs/engineering-feedback/README.md)
* [Non Functional Requirements](docs/non-functional-requirements/)
* [Observability](docs/observability/README.md)
* [Security](docs/security/README.md)
* [Source Control](docs/source-control/README.md)
* [UI/UX](docs/UI-UX/README.md)

## Fundamentals for Specific Technology Areas

* [Machine Learning/AI Fundamentals](docs/ml-and-ai-projects/README.md)
* [User-Interface Engineering](docs/UI-UX/README.md)

## Contributing

See [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md) for contribution guidelines.
