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I think this sort of thing is the outcome of “engineer stockpiling” where companies insatiably hire engineers beyond what they need. The company becomes a “a c

I think this sort of thing is the outcome of “engineer stockpiling” where companies insatiably hire engineers beyond what they need. The company becomes a “a collector of fine engineers” like a gallery or museum or stable. And since such engineers get bored working on logging systems or whatever they do something more fun.

dlhavema 6y ago
They are also built especially for developers and this lets more developers know more about their platform. I'm guessing this goes a long way to improving relationships in the community and just good PR for twilio as well. Twilio was one of the first places that I used starter code added my credentials and ran it without any bugs, And actually they embedded the test credentials in the starter code for me so that was even easier.
nogabebop23 6y ago
It may be fun for the company's engineers but it's also incredibly effective developer envagelism / marketing for a company like Twilio that targets a developer audience. Microsoft has always done a good job of this on their developer side, which is pretty impressive based on their size and long life.
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  Who the hell wants to play a 2d rpg to figure out a product’s docs? What a silly world we live in.
  - cambalache 6y ago
    It is the infantilization of the population. Same way you see now guys in their 20s-30s whose main cultural references are the Harry Potter books and the Star Wars movies.
  - lucasverra 6y ago
    FYI there are 12y kids out there wanting to implement some rad sms feature for his classmates. Twilio quest is Fun and well made and inviting. If you want the proper do c, you can search for that also.
  - ponker 6y ago
    You know that Twilio also has... documentation... right?
ABeeSea 6y ago
Think of this as a marketing expense rather than just bored engineers doing something random. Whether it’s effective marketing can be debated, but it’s still marketing.
kelnos 6y ago
TwilioQuest was built by the developer evangelism team (which is in the marketing org), not by regular development teams (who probably helped a little here and there, of course). Our development teams are more than 100% busy on product work, don't worry. (Source: I've worked there for nearly 9 years.)
- sarakayakomzin 6y ago
  I'm going on 3 weeks for resolution of an account takeover there. Glad to see it isn't a collection of bots.
- ratiolat 6y ago
  Hi! Please add google authenticator as 2fa. SMS is horribly broken as 2fa.
  - hombre_fatal 6y ago
    The keyword you're looking for is TOTP/one-time token. Google Authenticator itself is basically the worst thing your users could be using since it has no key export and users are going to lose/buy new phones. Least replace it with Authy if you're going to bring this up any time a Twilio employee rears their head. Google Authenticator needs to die, not be conflated with one-time token 2fa. One last thing, since it seems to be a mission for you. 2fa, especially via unbackupable one-time tokens (Google Authenticator) may introduce more security vulns. It's not free. And not something a company should probably implement if they didn't give it any thought until an HN comment got them to make a ticket for it. Someone has gotten into both my bank account (BOA) and my Amazon with the ol "lol lost my phone with 2fa enabled" customer support channel and customer support just went "ah no prob, here you go."
    - gabrielsroka 6y ago
      > Google Authenticator ... has no key export and users are going to ... buy new phones Actually, it does (finally!). Not as great as Authy, though.
harikb 6y ago
I think such “stockpiling” will first create mediocre reimplementations of DBs & web frameworks before fixing all issues by sticking a redis up front. I don’t think Twillio is that kind. In this case though, this looks like a genuine external facing effort
ForHackernews 6y ago
That sounds fantastic. We should all be so lucky to get paid to do something interesting and creative instead of updating the CRM fields or whatever.
ponker 6y ago
This implies that marketing isn’t a “need,” which couldn’t be farther from the truth — great product is easier and easier to build so great marketing becomes more valuable and more essential every year. Most SaaS startups succeed or fail on the back of their marketing org. Engineering can generally build what’s asked of them.

dlhavema 6y ago

They are also built especially for developers and this lets more developers know more about their platform. I'm guessing this goes a long way to improving relationships in the community and just good PR for twilio as well. Twilio was one of the first places that I used starter code added my credentials and ran it without any bugs, And actually they embedded the test credentials in the starter code for me so that was even easier.

nogabebop23 6y ago

It may be fun for the company's engineers but it's also incredibly effective developer envagelism / marketing for a company like Twilio that targets a developer audience. Microsoft has always done a good job of this on their developer side, which is pretty impressive based on their size and long life.

runawaybottle 6y ago
Who the hell wants to play a 2d rpg to figure out a product’s docs? What a silly world we live in.
- cambalache 6y ago
  It is the infantilization of the population. Same way you see now guys in their 20s-30s whose main cultural references are the Harry Potter books and the Star Wars movies.
- lucasverra 6y ago
  FYI there are 12y kids out there wanting to implement some rad sms feature for his classmates. Twilio quest is Fun and well made and inviting. If you want the proper do c, you can search for that also.
- ponker 6y ago
  You know that Twilio also has... documentation... right?

ABeeSea 6y ago

Think of this as a marketing expense rather than just bored engineers doing something random. Whether it’s effective marketing can be debated, but it’s still marketing.

kelnos 6y ago

TwilioQuest was built by the developer evangelism team (which is in the marketing org), not by regular development teams (who probably helped a little here and there, of course). Our development teams are more than 100% busy on product work, don't worry. (Source: I've worked there for nearly 9 years.)

sarakayakomzin 6y ago
I'm going on 3 weeks for resolution of an account takeover there. Glad to see it isn't a collection of bots.
ratiolat 6y ago
Hi! Please add google authenticator as 2fa. SMS is horribly broken as 2fa.
- hombre_fatal 6y ago
  The keyword you're looking for is TOTP/one-time token. Google Authenticator itself is basically the worst thing your users could be using since it has no key export and users are going to lose/buy new phones. Least replace it with Authy if you're going to bring this up any time a Twilio employee rears their head. Google Authenticator needs to die, not be conflated with one-time token 2fa. One last thing, since it seems to be a mission for you. 2fa, especially via unbackupable one-time tokens (Google Authenticator) may introduce more security vulns. It's not free. And not something a company should probably implement if they didn't give it any thought until an HN comment got them to make a ticket for it. Someone has gotten into both my bank account (BOA) and my Amazon with the ol "lol lost my phone with 2fa enabled" customer support channel and customer support just went "ah no prob, here you go."
  - gabrielsroka 6y ago
    > Google Authenticator ... has no key export and users are going to ... buy new phones Actually, it does (finally!). Not as great as Authy, though.

harikb 6y ago

I think such “stockpiling” will first create mediocre reimplementations of DBs & web frameworks before fixing all issues by sticking a redis up front. I don’t think Twillio is that kind. In this case though, this looks like a genuine external facing effort

ForHackernews 6y ago

That sounds fantastic. We should all be so lucky to get paid to do something interesting and creative instead of updating the CRM fields or whatever.

ponker 6y ago

This implies that marketing isn’t a “need,” which couldn’t be farther from the truth — great product is easier and easier to build so great marketing becomes more valuable and more essential every year. Most SaaS startups succeed or fail on the back of their marketing org. Engineering can generally build what’s asked of them.