Error correction is crucial for large scale quantum computing. I first give a brief overview of general considerations in the design of quantum error correcting codes adapted to specific hardware. I then present a new realization of the surface code on a rectangular lattice of qubits utilizing single-qubit and nearest-neighbor two-qubit Pauli measurements and three auxiliary qubits per plaquette. The code is optimized for Majorana-based hardware. It has a short operation period of 4 steps and is designed to handle problematic error types well, in particular so-called ``hook errors'' and the presence of dead components. I also discuss the construction of an efficient decoder for the code, and show the simulated code performance under the standard circuit noise model. The performance simulations indicate that the code has a high threshold of about 0.66% and is competitive with the current state-of-the-art quantum error correcting code for Majorana-based hardware, the 4.8.8. Floquet code.