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I'm not following - Is it your claim that among FAANGs it is a normal practice to say "This will take X weeks" when in reality it will take Y weeks to implemen

I'm not following - Is it your claim that among FAANGs it is a normal practice to say "This will take X weeks" when in reality it will take Y weeks to implement and K weeks to refactor something else where Y + K is X?

tomnipotent 7y ago
That these companies don't treat engineers as a cost structure the way you were talking about. This creates a drastically different culture since tech has a seat at the table, and the CFO can't just willy-nilly makes demands that impact the entire engineering organization without consent. It makes a big difference.
- notyourday 7y ago
  > That these companies don't treat engineers as a cost structure the way you were talking about. That's absurd. The reason those companies are making money is because they are costing every single thing. That's the reason why tech gets a seat at the table -- it is a cost and its top of the line managers understand that this is a liability and drive that understanding through the entire tech organization.
  - tomnipotent 7y ago
    > The reason those companies are making money is because they are costing every single thing Terribly untrue. This is fundamentally what makes them "technology" companies, because of how engineering expenses are treated on the P&L and the say it has at the C-level. There's a fundamental different between how things roll-up n your 3 sheets, vs. how your company internalizes those numbers and acts upon them. You've made a lot of broad generalizations without backing anything up with specific examples. It's difficult to have a conversation with theoreticals and ideas.
rileymat2 7y ago
> in reality it will take Y weeks to implement and K weeks to refactor something else where Y + K is X This is misleading, you should not be refactoring some other random code. You should be refactoring the code you are adding to/changing as part of the work. And it should be in proportion to the size of the change.
- notyourday 7y ago
  Who established the process control? The same developer that does the refactoring? Because if it is done by someone above him on the org chart then the developer has to either lie about what he is doing or he has to break it down into the refactoring + feature.
  - rileymat2 7y ago
    If you were to take a tdd style micro loop of red/green/refactor it is part of the feature. There is no untangling no separate estimation.

tomnipotent 7y ago

That these companies don't treat engineers as a cost structure the way you were talking about. This creates a drastically different culture since tech has a seat at the table, and the CFO can't just willy-nilly makes demands that impact the entire engineering organization without consent. It makes a big difference.

notyourday 7y ago
> That these companies don't treat engineers as a cost structure the way you were talking about. That's absurd. The reason those companies are making money is because they are costing every single thing. That's the reason why tech gets a seat at the table -- it is a cost and its top of the line managers understand that this is a liability and drive that understanding through the entire tech organization.
- tomnipotent 7y ago
  > The reason those companies are making money is because they are costing every single thing Terribly untrue. This is fundamentally what makes them "technology" companies, because of how engineering expenses are treated on the P&L and the say it has at the C-level. There's a fundamental different between how things roll-up n your 3 sheets, vs. how your company internalizes those numbers and acts upon them. You've made a lot of broad generalizations without backing anything up with specific examples. It's difficult to have a conversation with theoreticals and ideas.

rileymat2 7y ago

> in reality it will take Y weeks to implement and K weeks to refactor something else where Y + K is X This is misleading, you should not be refactoring some other random code. You should be refactoring the code you are adding to/changing as part of the work. And it should be in proportion to the size of the change.

notyourday 7y ago
Who established the process control? The same developer that does the refactoring? Because if it is done by someone above him on the org chart then the developer has to either lie about what he is doing or he has to break it down into the refactoring + feature.
- rileymat2 7y ago
  If you were to take a tdd style micro loop of red/green/refactor it is part of the feature. There is no untangling no separate estimation.