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I think it's eastern tech culture. East tends to assume everyone is interchangeable and not as intelligent, and tries to bring people up via education. Whereas

by muzani 4y ago

I think it's eastern tech culture. East tends to assume everyone is interchangeable and not as intelligent, and tries to bring people up via education. Whereas West tends to just hire talent and let them figure it out. Not everyone here speaks a common language, and if it is, it's almost certainly English. So documentation and communication is greatly simplified, smaller words, and a lot of conversing through code. Let's compare two mature technologies between east and west, Google Maps vs Huawei Map SDK: Google map quickstart: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/android-sdk/start https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/android-sdk... Huawei map: https://developer.huawei.com/consumer/en/doc/development/HMSCore-Guides/android-sdk-map-instance-creation-0000001062881706 https://developer.huawei.com/consumer/en/doc/development/HMS... There's subtle differences here, but Google tends to use a lot more English words, and Huawei talks mostly in code. System analysts are common, who act as living documentation. Basically people who you can always interrupt to ask questions. PM isn't sure if a feature is possible? Ask the analyst. Dev doesn't know the right endpoint or understand how something works? The analyst takes time to explain it to them. They generally don't hold the responsibility of development and during periods of low utilisation, they learn the architecture or do R&D. In MMOs, they would be the tank, while the devs focus on being DPS. So personally, I think the key is that they rely less on the skill of the individual, and focus heavily on teamwork. Also this is probably an analysis of Huawei more than ByteDance/TikTok, but I assume the culture is more similar.

hot_gril 4y ago
> There's subtle differences here, but Google tends to use a lot more English words, and Huawei talks mostly in code. I learned how well code speaks when working with remote web/mobile app contractors who hardly spoke English and had a 12hr time difference. If they didn't understand something right the first time, it could cost a day of progress. I started giving them code or cURL examples on how to use every backend call I implemented, often using multiple together. We ended up better oiled than some fully-localized teams I've been on. Now I just work with other Americans in the Google offices, and I've seen success focusing our internal communications and docs more on examples. I often complain about how many English words our docs have, both internally and with customers. Nobody cares what my thing is or what philosophy it follows, they care how to use it. And like TikTok videos, brevity helps. However, I don't think this explains TikTok's ability to load videos quickly.
- muzani 4y ago
  I was mostly answering that last question, "How did they manage to get the engineering talent when seemingly FB, MS, Netflix, Amazon, Google are all fighting for that talent?" which I think is a false assumption - they don't need as much engineering talent, they do more with less.
  - hot_gril 4y ago
    Oh yeah, they probably do. FAANG can throw really expensive engineers at simple problems and still get bad results, or they can accomplish great things.

by muzani 4y ago

hot_gril 4y ago

> There's subtle differences here, but Google tends to use a lot more English words, and Huawei talks mostly in code. I learned how well code speaks when working with remote web/mobile app contractors who hardly spoke English and had a 12hr time difference. If they didn't understand something right the first time, it could cost a day of progress. I started giving them code or cURL examples on how to use every backend call I implemented, often using multiple together. We ended up better oiled than some fully-localized teams I've been on. Now I just work with other Americans in the Google offices, and I've seen success focusing our internal communications and docs more on examples. I often complain about how many English words our docs have, both internally and with customers. Nobody cares what my thing is or what philosophy it follows, they care how to use it. And like TikTok videos, brevity helps. However, I don't think this explains TikTok's ability to load videos quickly.

muzani 4y ago
I was mostly answering that last question, "How did they manage to get the engineering talent when seemingly FB, MS, Netflix, Amazon, Google are all fighting for that talent?" which I think is a false assumption - they don't need as much engineering talent, they do more with less.
- hot_gril 4y ago
  Oh yeah, they probably do. FAANG can throw really expensive engineers at simple problems and still get bad results, or they can accomplish great things.