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So the article doesn't site sources, but it looks to me like another dev sharing "expertise" based on 1 data point (his experience of one team, one product). I

So the article doesn't site sources, but it looks to me like another dev sharing "expertise" based on 1 data point (his experience of one team, one product). I work in technical diligence, we assess companies getting purchased, getting ready to exit, raising money, etc. I've done 50+ myself, read reports for hundreds more, and Crosslake (my employer) has done thousands. This is not our experience. Overspend on dev team is occasionally an issue. Key person risks, tech debt, and other symptoms of lack of expertise are frequently serious issues. (No amount of juniours eliminates key person risk on a senior, only a similarly expert senior does). The companies I have seen that made policies of hiring smaller teams of the best people they can find and paying them well were, in general, kicking ass. I would argue this article has it completely backwards. My opinion, based on anecdotal (because I didn't run stats on it) but much larger sample size is that the difference to your company over the long term of senior vs junior dwarfs the difference in cost. We are constantly saying "hire more seniors in X,Y,Z". We are rarely saying "cut dev spend". My advice: for your core offering, buy the best devs you can and make them happy. For all the peripheral commodity stuff (the "not rocket science"), outsource to Eastern Europe and have a full time senior based locally who job is to run that team, interfacing with their lead and managing integration with your core. Especially right now. Preferring juniors when the market is full of freshly unemploye ace seniors would be terrifically stupid.

wtatum 3y ago
Having been the target of a Crosslake report a few times it felt like the process was actually almost entirely focused on points like this. Key person risk, talent acquisition pipeline, process maturity, "definition of done", etc. It felt like "hard" tech debt items around code quality, measured SLA performance, etc were present for the sake of completeness but were of almost no consequence to the Crosslake team or those who would read the report. Does that mirror your experience working in DD?
- fisf 3y ago
  There is a reason for that. Tech debt, code quality, poor SLA metrics are symptoms, and proxies for various things (that can be fixed). Failures in the other areas are root causes and more fundamental issues.
- iainctduncan 3y ago
  It's a complex question. First, every diligence has very limited time, so for code and arch diligence, we get enough time to know if it's really good, or really bad. In the middle, you need weeks, not hours. Second, every client has different priorities, but in general, they want to know what the potential risks are of tanking the investment, and what they need to do to make sure this can't hapen. PE firms aren't like VCs... they don't want a 1 in 10 chance of unicorn, they want a 90% chance of a solid return with zero chance of losing the entire thing. When you're spending $50M to a $1B, a low-but-avoidable risk of disaster is not OK. Finding those is our number one priority. If the code is not awful, then the people, process, and org risks are much more likely to do this. I'm one of the first to say tech debt kills companies - I've literally seen it. But.... dysfunctional organizations kill companies worse and faster. And those are much easier to sniff out in two days of interviews.
Justsignedup 3y ago
Yeah came here to say that. I've never been part of a highly senior team. The BEST i've seen is a 1 sr to 2 jr ratio. And I've seen engs who have like 2 years of experience, clearly upper jr but talented, get sr titles.
- tharkun__ 3y ago
  If a customer service agent you just hired is called an "Executive Client Account Manager" what do you expect the talented software people to be called?

wtatum 3y ago

Having been the target of a Crosslake report a few times it felt like the process was actually almost entirely focused on points like this. Key person risk, talent acquisition pipeline, process maturity, "definition of done", etc. It felt like "hard" tech debt items around code quality, measured SLA performance, etc were present for the sake of completeness but were of almost no consequence to the Crosslake team or those who would read the report. Does that mirror your experience working in DD?

fisf 3y ago
There is a reason for that. Tech debt, code quality, poor SLA metrics are symptoms, and proxies for various things (that can be fixed). Failures in the other areas are root causes and more fundamental issues.
iainctduncan 3y ago
It's a complex question. First, every diligence has very limited time, so for code and arch diligence, we get enough time to know if it's really good, or really bad. In the middle, you need weeks, not hours. Second, every client has different priorities, but in general, they want to know what the potential risks are of tanking the investment, and what they need to do to make sure this can't hapen. PE firms aren't like VCs... they don't want a 1 in 10 chance of unicorn, they want a 90% chance of a solid return with zero chance of losing the entire thing. When you're spending $50M to a $1B, a low-but-avoidable risk of disaster is not OK. Finding those is our number one priority. If the code is not awful, then the people, process, and org risks are much more likely to do this. I'm one of the first to say tech debt kills companies - I've literally seen it. But.... dysfunctional organizations kill companies worse and faster. And those are much easier to sniff out in two days of interviews.

Justsignedup 3y ago

Yeah came here to say that. I've never been part of a highly senior team. The BEST i've seen is a 1 sr to 2 jr ratio. And I've seen engs who have like 2 years of experience, clearly upper jr but talented, get sr titles.

tharkun__ 3y ago
If a customer service agent you just hired is called an "Executive Client Account Manager" what do you expect the talented software people to be called?