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It seems so strange to have such a polished initiative on a niche project like Twilio. I can understand this for AWS, JavaScript Libraries, or SalesForce, but n

It seems so strange to have such a polished initiative on a niche project like Twilio. I can understand this for AWS, JavaScript Libraries, or SalesForce, but nobody's job title is exclusively "Twilio Engineer". Then again, the team was always notably helpful during hackathons, and their documentation is usually on point. Maybe they recognize this as a company strength, and they are harnessing it as a way to compete with the likes of AWS/Google Cloud.

crabasa 9y ago
Twilio has an entire team of engineers focused on Developer Education. Two of the leads gave a talk [1] that explains this in more detail at Signal 2016. [1] https://www.twilio.com/signal/2016/video/6Gjpnzch0sggKeey0yigko/new-product-session-3 https://www.twilio.com/signal/2016/video/6Gjpnzch0sggKeey0yi...
Trufa 9y ago
Honestly, even as a marketing effort this is awesome. It just speaks well of a company that it does something like this, without knowing much about them before this, now I have impressions of cool and even trustworthy for some reason after seeing this. Much like when you go into a website and know (unlike your average mother/grandfather) where to put your credit card or not because of the "feel", this gives me the feel of an awesome company.
graphitezepp 9y ago
Stuff like this and their hackathon reps are why I care about Twilio in the first place. I have suggested its use professionally before and I would have never remembered the service existed if it wasn't for a great hackathon experience using it where the rep was very helpful.
newlyretired 9y ago
Twilio has nearly a $3 billion market cap right now, and their signup/churn/usage rates give them a good idea on the growth potential for this market. Nobody I know is a Twilio engineer, but nearly every backend developer I've worked with has, or wants to use, Twilio. There's something old school phreaking about using a computer to control phone systems. They seem to believe that the market is very broad, occasionally deep (Uber was ~10% of their usage), and super cool. They haven't gotten so big to discard their focus yet playful roots (their hackathon outreach is a great example; that's where I first learned the API).
scientistem 9y ago
SMS is really hard. While my name isn’t Twilio Engineer, it might as well be SMS engineer.
giobox 9y ago
Anyone with the misfortune to work in enterprise software would probably disagree with describing Twilio as a "niche" project. Increasingly they _are_ inbound channels for a huge range of customer facing enterprise applications.
SimbaOnSteroids 9y ago
Speaking of hackathons, I've got one this weekend and was planning to use twilio in the hack. In the past did you just reach out to them for help? How so?
- chirau 9y ago
  They are super responsive and helpful. Where are you located? Sam Agnew is always there to help you.
  - SimbaOnSteroids 9y ago
    Hackathon is in StL (midwest USA), it looks like they are only available M-F though.
kfriede 9y ago
I believe that it's because of efforts like this that you don't see the need for "Twilio Engineer." When you make integration easy for the everyday developer, they're able to spend more time focusing on the other parts of their project.
iguana 9y ago
I'm basically a twilio engineer now. I do a lot of telephony, but no one wants to run and scale their own stack, so everyone ends up building against REST apis. Twilio has some of the best features around reliably placing calls, sending texts, and the most enjoyable developer experience of any api I've ever used, including outside of telephony. I've built a 100% serverless contact center, among other things. Twilio Sync RT infra is also fantastic. Their WebRTC service was total shit through 2014 but is better now.
- malloryerik 9y ago
  Would you use their WebRTC offering, or is there a better alternative?
  - iguana 9y ago
    Sure, I'd use it, but under the following conditions: - wired ethernet - lots of guard code that reconnects failed calls - customer is aware they will not get 5 9's or even 3 9's. Typically using WebRTC means a significant cost savings, so it may or may not be worthwhile to build out the additional stuff needed to make it work.
- lucasverra 9y ago
  I've heard it's not the best solution in Europe. What can you tell about it ?
zitterbewegung 9y ago
I think we will have Twilio Engineers. They might be called vocal interface engineers. and I'm pretty sure that there will be people that would exclusively use their SMS / MMS backends so they will be voice / text UX engineers.

crabasa 9y ago

Twilio has an entire team of engineers focused on Developer Education. Two of the leads gave a talk [1] that explains this in more detail at Signal 2016. [1] https://www.twilio.com/signal/2016/video/6Gjpnzch0sggKeey0yigko/new-product-session-3 https://www.twilio.com/signal/2016/video/6Gjpnzch0sggKeey0yi...

Trufa 9y ago

Honestly, even as a marketing effort this is awesome. It just speaks well of a company that it does something like this, without knowing much about them before this, now I have impressions of cool and even trustworthy for some reason after seeing this. Much like when you go into a website and know (unlike your average mother/grandfather) where to put your credit card or not because of the "feel", this gives me the feel of an awesome company.

graphitezepp 9y ago

Stuff like this and their hackathon reps are why I care about Twilio in the first place. I have suggested its use professionally before and I would have never remembered the service existed if it wasn't for a great hackathon experience using it where the rep was very helpful.

newlyretired 9y ago

Twilio has nearly a $3 billion market cap right now, and their signup/churn/usage rates give them a good idea on the growth potential for this market. Nobody I know is a Twilio engineer, but nearly every backend developer I've worked with has, or wants to use, Twilio. There's something old school phreaking about using a computer to control phone systems. They seem to believe that the market is very broad, occasionally deep (Uber was ~10% of their usage), and super cool. They haven't gotten so big to discard their focus yet playful roots (their hackathon outreach is a great example; that's where I first learned the API).

scientistem 9y ago

SMS is really hard. While my name isn’t Twilio Engineer, it might as well be SMS engineer.

giobox 9y ago

Anyone with the misfortune to work in enterprise software would probably disagree with describing Twilio as a "niche" project. Increasingly they _are_ inbound channels for a huge range of customer facing enterprise applications.

SimbaOnSteroids 9y ago

Speaking of hackathons, I've got one this weekend and was planning to use twilio in the hack. In the past did you just reach out to them for help? How so?

chirau 9y ago
They are super responsive and helpful. Where are you located? Sam Agnew is always there to help you.
- SimbaOnSteroids 9y ago
  Hackathon is in StL (midwest USA), it looks like they are only available M-F though.

kfriede 9y ago

I believe that it's because of efforts like this that you don't see the need for "Twilio Engineer." When you make integration easy for the everyday developer, they're able to spend more time focusing on the other parts of their project.

iguana 9y ago

I'm basically a twilio engineer now. I do a lot of telephony, but no one wants to run and scale their own stack, so everyone ends up building against REST apis. Twilio has some of the best features around reliably placing calls, sending texts, and the most enjoyable developer experience of any api I've ever used, including outside of telephony. I've built a 100% serverless contact center, among other things. Twilio Sync RT infra is also fantastic. Their WebRTC service was total shit through 2014 but is better now.

malloryerik 9y ago
Would you use their WebRTC offering, or is there a better alternative?
- iguana 9y ago
  Sure, I'd use it, but under the following conditions: - wired ethernet - lots of guard code that reconnects failed calls - customer is aware they will not get 5 9's or even 3 9's. Typically using WebRTC means a significant cost savings, so it may or may not be worthwhile to build out the additional stuff needed to make it work.
lucasverra 9y ago
I've heard it's not the best solution in Europe. What can you tell about it ?

zitterbewegung 9y ago

I think we will have Twilio Engineers. They might be called vocal interface engineers. and I'm pretty sure that there will be people that would exclusively use their SMS / MMS backends so they will be voice / text UX engineers.