4 ms·

I'm completely ok with giving a team of 19 developers the benefit of the doubt, but in this case it doesn't matter if they're good or bad developers. They're 19

by ratww 4y ago

I'm completely ok with giving a team of 19 developers the benefit of the doubt, but in this case it doesn't matter if they're good or bad developers. They're 19 people. There's gonna be lots more overhead if it's a project that one person was able to do themselves. Bring in a junior developer in the middle and you're gonna have to train them, slowing down the process. Bring in a new senior and he might not slow you down, but won't be productive for a while. Bring a designer and that overhead becomes even higher. Bring a second designer and it's even worse. Another stakeholder? Same deal. Dailies and Retros are too crowded? Divide the team in two and bring another manager? Same deal. Software is hard. Head count doesn't mean speed. In fact it often means the opposite. EDIT: About solo devs, it's funny that in HN there is a bit of a cult for good developers that manage to make things useable for others, and that includes everything from products to libraries and languages. But as soon as someone tells a story about someone or some team being unable to take over a solo-dev work, their work is immediately treated as if it were complete garbage. One thing that made me a better developer was stopping having this attitude. Maybe the reason I can't understand is that I am the one who's not good enough. EDIT 2: Btw, sorry if my tone sounds as if I'm disagreeing with you. I’m not! I also don't think you were doubting the OP. It's just that I keep seeing this industry making the same bad assumptions about team-size, year in year out.

BlargMcLarg 4y ago
Your assumption is fair given the industry has been trending towards 'more' as a way to be 'better', without understanding how things scale, how development isn't the same as a manufactory line and multiple types trying to pawn their arrogance off as others simply not "understanding it". I'm sure you can relate with many anecdotes where mentioned bad assumptions were sold as ICs being faulty rather than those in charge. 'More' meaning in every non-technical context. More paper, more communication, more heads to count, etc.
- ratww 4y ago
  Exactly. The trend to more is often forced by investors etc, but this thinking is also seeping into developers. I worked in a Softbank startup that start hiring like crazy for positions that weren't necessary, because that's what Softbank asked for. It was a crazy place to work where anything bringing productivity gains and solving developer pain wasn't rewarded. But, of course, we several people working on developer experience, because there was not enough work for all developers. On the other hand, maybe this is a good thing. It means more jobs for developers. More money redistribution. But on the other hand it is soul crushing to see something that could be a 2-hour walk on the park becoming a 3-month transatlantic expedition involving several teams. In the job above, I worked for a few weeks on a team that was responsible for one single screen, and this screen had three checkboxes which we used to update some third-party API. No, there wasn't much more than that. It made me want to kill myself.

by ratww 4y ago

BlargMcLarg 4y ago

Your assumption is fair given the industry has been trending towards 'more' as a way to be 'better', without understanding how things scale, how development isn't the same as a manufactory line and multiple types trying to pawn their arrogance off as others simply not "understanding it". I'm sure you can relate with many anecdotes where mentioned bad assumptions were sold as ICs being faulty rather than those in charge. 'More' meaning in every non-technical context. More paper, more communication, more heads to count, etc.

ratww 4y ago
Exactly. The trend to more is often forced by investors etc, but this thinking is also seeping into developers. I worked in a Softbank startup that start hiring like crazy for positions that weren't necessary, because that's what Softbank asked for. It was a crazy place to work where anything bringing productivity gains and solving developer pain wasn't rewarded. But, of course, we several people working on developer experience, because there was not enough work for all developers. On the other hand, maybe this is a good thing. It means more jobs for developers. More money redistribution. But on the other hand it is soul crushing to see something that could be a 2-hour walk on the park becoming a 3-month transatlantic expedition involving several teams. In the job above, I worked for a few weeks on a team that was responsible for one single screen, and this screen had three checkboxes which we used to update some third-party API. No, there wasn't much more than that. It made me want to kill myself.