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I'm impressed by how small the teams remain at Facebook. His profile shows that he worked on this profile revamp with only 6 other people, as well as Chat with

I'm impressed by how small the teams remain at Facebook. His profile shows that he worked on this profile revamp with only 6 other people, as well as Chat with 5 others, and the iPhoto exporter himself at a Hackathon. While there have been reports of Google's teams burgeoning in size, it seems that at least for now Facebook is keeping them small. Obviously, these products have had perhaps less depth than Wave for example (which had a 30 person team http://www.businessinsider.com/why-google-cant-build-instagram-2010-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/why-google-cant-build-instagr...). But, still, it says something about Facebook that they are attempting to keep team size small.

jiganti 16y ago
It's so easy to find reasons for adding another person to a team, but much more difficult to identify when things like groupthink have become a problem as a result of those additions.
- Ygor 16y ago
  Related: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%27s_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%27s_law "Nine women can't make a baby in one month"
  - jmtulloss 16y ago
    I've never liked that saying. Nine women can make nine babies in nine months, you're just running up against fundamental limits with the nine month thing. Of course there are fundamental limits in software engineering as well, but they're much more difficult to identify than the length of time it takes to make a baby. The argument that fundamental limits exist is not an argument not to try and get to those limits.
    - electromagnetic 16y ago
      Yes nine women can make nine babies in nine months, but they're all going to be born in 9 months (give or take), which doesn't help you have a baby in 1 month. If you plan it right, you can have 1 baby a month with a 9 month delay, but again that's 8 months too late for a deadline. The saying here is essentially akin to too many cooks spoil the broth. Put it this way: 1 brick layer can lay 9ft of brick in 9 days (no factuality here). If you're building a wall you can only go one row at a time. 2/3 brick layers will speed up the process. However 9 brick layers won't produce a 9ft tall brick wall in 9 days because 6 brick layers will be sat on their arses drinking coffee. 9 brick layers can produce 9 9ft walls in 9 days, but won't be producing a 9ft wall in a day 9 days continuously working as a team. The statement doesn't preclude that work can be produced efficiently, for example you could easily have 4 brick layers build 4 9ft walls - AKA a house - in 9 days. The aim is to find your fundamental limit and work with it. If you need a baby every month, sure plan ahead and you could have a baby monthly starting in 9 months, if you can account for that 9 month waiting period. You will never get a baby in 1 month with a team of 9 women and only 1 of them being pregnant.
      - andreyf 16y ago
        I think you just said the exact same thing as the person you were replying to, no?
bkhl 16y ago
This also implies that Facebook grills their engineers to the point where engineers would get exhausted so easily. Executing huge features with small teams is very great for the company, but does that necessarily mean it's a great place to work? For instance, recently graduated people would be very suitable for Facebook because they are young and single (as in not married). However, people with families would less likely to work for Facebook.
- encoderer 16y ago
  Does it? Not necessarily. At my previous employer I was one of several team leads and we almost always broke into 4-8 man teams. One of my biggest takeaways from doing that for a couple years is how dramatically productivity can swing based on factors like the texture of the project, the clarity of the goal, the freedom of the TL to make judgment calls without needing to get approval from a BA, morale, the quality of the spec (note that quality != length), etc. No reason a small dedicated team cannot build large products with reasonable deadlines and a balanced lifestyle. Though, in the interest of full disclosure, in my opinion 50 hours a week is fully balanced and a team can run at 50 hours pretty consistently without ill effects if they WANT to and are HAPPY with their mission and job.

jiganti 16y ago

It's so easy to find reasons for adding another person to a team, but much more difficult to identify when things like groupthink have become a problem as a result of those additions.

Ygor 16y ago
Related: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%27s_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%27s_law "Nine women can't make a baby in one month"
- jmtulloss 16y ago
  I've never liked that saying. Nine women can make nine babies in nine months, you're just running up against fundamental limits with the nine month thing. Of course there are fundamental limits in software engineering as well, but they're much more difficult to identify than the length of time it takes to make a baby. The argument that fundamental limits exist is not an argument not to try and get to those limits.
  - electromagnetic 16y ago
    Yes nine women can make nine babies in nine months, but they're all going to be born in 9 months (give or take), which doesn't help you have a baby in 1 month. If you plan it right, you can have 1 baby a month with a 9 month delay, but again that's 8 months too late for a deadline. The saying here is essentially akin to too many cooks spoil the broth. Put it this way: 1 brick layer can lay 9ft of brick in 9 days (no factuality here). If you're building a wall you can only go one row at a time. 2/3 brick layers will speed up the process. However 9 brick layers won't produce a 9ft tall brick wall in 9 days because 6 brick layers will be sat on their arses drinking coffee. 9 brick layers can produce 9 9ft walls in 9 days, but won't be producing a 9ft wall in a day 9 days continuously working as a team. The statement doesn't preclude that work can be produced efficiently, for example you could easily have 4 brick layers build 4 9ft walls - AKA a house - in 9 days. The aim is to find your fundamental limit and work with it. If you need a baby every month, sure plan ahead and you could have a baby monthly starting in 9 months, if you can account for that 9 month waiting period. You will never get a baby in 1 month with a team of 9 women and only 1 of them being pregnant.
    - andreyf 16y ago
      I think you just said the exact same thing as the person you were replying to, no?

bkhl 16y ago

This also implies that Facebook grills their engineers to the point where engineers would get exhausted so easily. Executing huge features with small teams is very great for the company, but does that necessarily mean it's a great place to work? For instance, recently graduated people would be very suitable for Facebook because they are young and single (as in not married). However, people with families would less likely to work for Facebook.

encoderer 16y ago
Does it? Not necessarily. At my previous employer I was one of several team leads and we almost always broke into 4-8 man teams. One of my biggest takeaways from doing that for a couple years is how dramatically productivity can swing based on factors like the texture of the project, the clarity of the goal, the freedom of the TL to make judgment calls without needing to get approval from a BA, morale, the quality of the spec (note that quality != length), etc. No reason a small dedicated team cannot build large products with reasonable deadlines and a balanced lifestyle. Though, in the interest of full disclosure, in my opinion 50 hours a week is fully balanced and a team can run at 50 hours pretty consistently without ill effects if they WANT to and are HAPPY with their mission and job.