8 ms·

Twitter's Tips for Making Software Engineers More Efficient

96 points by michakinlabi 11y ago

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
Phlow 11y ago
To me, this is obvious. I find it extremely valuable to spend time making things more efficient and clear. Even if the time spent doesn't save that much time, but makes things less frustrating, it's a big win to me. There's a lot to be said for having processes that are predictable, that don't randomly have issues that require taking time out of your day to resolve before you get to your actual problem. I'd be surprised if there was a significant percentage of companies that don't spend at least some time solving these types of problems. I think the question that this article brings up, is what that ratio should be to actually gain.
pg_is_a_butt 11y ago
take away their twitter?
digitalbuckz 11y ago
Seems odd to take this advice from a company like Twitter when you compare them to companies like Instagram and WhatsApp. How to keep a lot of engineers busy and burn a lot of money, they could offer lots of good tips there.
- erdevs 11y ago
  I had the same thought exactly. :)
- meeper16 11y ago
  Twitter != anything related to true software engineering. Twitter == majordomo wrapper.
  - rhizome 11y ago
    Nice one, I've never heard it phrased like that.
- powerfulninja 11y ago
  Why? Because Twitter as a company hasn't produced effective revenue? Twitter (or their employees personal projects) has brought us Bower, Bootstrap, Typeahead, Flight and many other fantastic open source tools to make devs more productive. I think they are a great company to take advice from in this specific area.
  - tajano 11y ago
    > Why? Because Twitter as a company hasn't produced effective revenue? Because they're lecturing about engineering efficiency, yet they require 2,000 engineers to support their product. By comparison, WhatsApp scaled to 3X as many active users with a engineering team 1/40th the size. Instagram also runs circles around them in this respect. For a team so huge and so productive, where is the output? More productivity tools? Maybe Twitter should pivot into that space.
    - jurre 11y ago
      Just the number of active users is a really bad metric in this case. WhatsApps product is much, much simpler than twitters products.
      - tajano 11y ago
        > WhatsApps product is much, much simpler than twitters products. Can you enumerate Twitter's products? Perhaps Instagram is a closer comparison -- broadcast photos instead of broadcast 140 characters. And you have a much smaller engineering team, much faster growth, twice as many active users, and far fewer fail whales. Regardless of the comparisons, 2,000 engineers seems excessive in proportion to Twitter's product, which suggests engineering inefficiency.
        ampersandy 11y ago
        Don't forget that Twitter has a comprehensive advertising platform. The partnerships, sales, tooling, and ad auction system themselves are likely just as complicated (or more so) than the basic Twitter product. Instagram has only recently started to monetize the product -- it's almost unfair to compare the size of the engineering teams supporting the systems.
vvanders 11y ago
Here's the problem with tools and process: They're a cost center and not a revenue generator. When you've got a group that provides no measurable revenue they will always be at a disadvantage to the group that provides the money train. This is why you see a systematic de-valuing of tools and iteration improvement despite the massive gains they provide.
- falsedan 11y ago
  We generate a huge amount of IP at work in a (similar to) engineering effectiveness role. Even the dumbest tools we come up with could be spun off into an ok-ish start-up. I guess it's a matter of mindset, if you think to make tools which address the issue at hand, you'll end up as a cost center; if you think of products to solve the class of problems the issue belongs to, then you'll be adding value to the company as well as improving effectiveness.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
  - icebraining 11y ago
    JIRA costs $20k for an organization with 2000 programmers. How much custom development can you fund with that amount? If your programmers earn $100k/y (fully-loaded!), you can't even afford 3 man-months.
    - bachmeier 11y ago
      I think the point is that JIRA won't do exactly what you need. Using a tool that's "good enough" is the best choice when you've got 5 developers but not when you've got 5000.
      - icebraining 11y ago
        Yeah, but when you buy a license, you get access to the full source, which you can adapt to your needs. I think that's a much better option than building a similar tool from scratch.
bozoUser 11y ago
Sometimes(read: most of the times) the tech debt and other code issues arise from the last min requirements although as dev. we try make sure the code is robust enough to absorb these changes seldom this happens. What I have seen is effective for me is to sit down with pen and paper and describe the problem at hand and then think about the solution write up.
rokhayakebe 11y ago
Looking at Whatsapp and Instagram's engineering teams' sizes, could twitter do with less than 100 engineers? If yes than what justifies having thousands when 50 would do? How does an organization get to that point?
- freyr 11y ago
  > How does an organization get to that point? Raise $1B in private capital and another $2.1B in an IPO. Now you have billions to burn and sky-high expectations and no path to profit. Hire lot of people and hope for the best. But in their defense, Whatsapp and Instagram hadn't demonstrated an viable alternative yet.
brillenfux 11y ago
Did they pull the scaling out of their hair? I'd like to read about the rationale.
OopsCriticality 11y ago
I didn't realize that that Peter Seibel (author of Practical Common Lisp) worked at Twitter. Neat. The article is pretty hand wavey, although the point made feels to be along the right lines; I'm left wondering what data supports the claims.
- ch0wn 11y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYsHK81MTHI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYsHK81MTHI
douche 11y ago
I wonder how much of this additional engineering workforce is working on things like Bootstrap, FlockDB, Bower, etc, vs internal tools?

96 points by michakinlabi 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

Phlow 11y ago

To me, this is obvious. I find it extremely valuable to spend time making things more efficient and clear. Even if the time spent doesn't save that much time, but makes things less frustrating, it's a big win to me. There's a lot to be said for having processes that are predictable, that don't randomly have issues that require taking time out of your day to resolve before you get to your actual problem. I'd be surprised if there was a significant percentage of companies that don't spend at least some time solving these types of problems. I think the question that this article brings up, is what that ratio should be to actually gain.

pg_is_a_butt 11y ago

take away their twitter?

digitalbuckz 11y ago

Seems odd to take this advice from a company like Twitter when you compare them to companies like Instagram and WhatsApp. How to keep a lot of engineers busy and burn a lot of money, they could offer lots of good tips there.

erdevs 11y ago
I had the same thought exactly. :)
meeper16 11y ago
Twitter != anything related to true software engineering. Twitter == majordomo wrapper.
- rhizome 11y ago
  Nice one, I've never heard it phrased like that.
powerfulninja 11y ago
Why? Because Twitter as a company hasn't produced effective revenue? Twitter (or their employees personal projects) has brought us Bower, Bootstrap, Typeahead, Flight and many other fantastic open source tools to make devs more productive. I think they are a great company to take advice from in this specific area.
- tajano 11y ago
  > Why? Because Twitter as a company hasn't produced effective revenue? Because they're lecturing about engineering efficiency, yet they require 2,000 engineers to support their product. By comparison, WhatsApp scaled to 3X as many active users with a engineering team 1/40th the size. Instagram also runs circles around them in this respect. For a team so huge and so productive, where is the output? More productivity tools? Maybe Twitter should pivot into that space.
  - jurre 11y ago
    Just the number of active users is a really bad metric in this case. WhatsApps product is much, much simpler than twitters products.
    - tajano 11y ago
      > WhatsApps product is much, much simpler than twitters products. Can you enumerate Twitter's products? Perhaps Instagram is a closer comparison -- broadcast photos instead of broadcast 140 characters. And you have a much smaller engineering team, much faster growth, twice as many active users, and far fewer fail whales. Regardless of the comparisons, 2,000 engineers seems excessive in proportion to Twitter's product, which suggests engineering inefficiency.
      - ampersandy 11y ago
        Don't forget that Twitter has a comprehensive advertising platform. The partnerships, sales, tooling, and ad auction system themselves are likely just as complicated (or more so) than the basic Twitter product. Instagram has only recently started to monetize the product -- it's almost unfair to compare the size of the engineering teams supporting the systems.

vvanders 11y ago

Here's the problem with tools and process: They're a cost center and not a revenue generator. When you've got a group that provides no measurable revenue they will always be at a disadvantage to the group that provides the money train. This is why you see a systematic de-valuing of tools and iteration improvement despite the massive gains they provide.

falsedan 11y ago
We generate a huge amount of IP at work in a (similar to) engineering effectiveness role. Even the dumbest tools we come up with could be spun off into an ok-ish start-up. I guess it's a matter of mindset, if you think to make tools which address the issue at hand, you'll end up as a cost center; if you think of products to solve the class of problems the issue belongs to, then you'll be adding value to the company as well as improving effectiveness.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- icebraining 11y ago
  JIRA costs $20k for an organization with 2000 programmers. How much custom development can you fund with that amount? If your programmers earn $100k/y (fully-loaded!), you can't even afford 3 man-months.
  - bachmeier 11y ago
    I think the point is that JIRA won't do exactly what you need. Using a tool that's "good enough" is the best choice when you've got 5 developers but not when you've got 5000.
    - icebraining 11y ago
      Yeah, but when you buy a license, you get access to the full source, which you can adapt to your needs. I think that's a much better option than building a similar tool from scratch.

bozoUser 11y ago

Sometimes(read: most of the times) the tech debt and other code issues arise from the last min requirements although as dev. we try make sure the code is robust enough to absorb these changes seldom this happens. What I have seen is effective for me is to sit down with pen and paper and describe the problem at hand and then think about the solution write up.

rokhayakebe 11y ago

Looking at Whatsapp and Instagram's engineering teams' sizes, could twitter do with less than 100 engineers? If yes than what justifies having thousands when 50 would do? How does an organization get to that point?

freyr 11y ago
> How does an organization get to that point? Raise $1B in private capital and another $2.1B in an IPO. Now you have billions to burn and sky-high expectations and no path to profit. Hire lot of people and hope for the best. But in their defense, Whatsapp and Instagram hadn't demonstrated an viable alternative yet.

brillenfux 11y ago

Did they pull the scaling out of their hair? I'd like to read about the rationale.

OopsCriticality 11y ago

I didn't realize that that Peter Seibel (author of Practical Common Lisp) worked at Twitter. Neat. The article is pretty hand wavey, although the point made feels to be along the right lines; I'm left wondering what data supports the claims.

ch0wn 11y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYsHK81MTHI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYsHK81MTHI

douche 11y ago

I wonder how much of this additional engineering workforce is working on things like Bootstrap, FlockDB, Bower, etc, vs internal tools?