I once interviewed for a lead webdev role at a small startup. They had 10-12 people, and a product that was doing OK. (I was thoroughly unconvinced by it, but t

I once interviewed for a lead webdev role at a small startup. They had 10-12 people, and a product that was doing OK. (I was thoroughly unconvinced by it, but that's another story). One of the things they talked about was their upcoming plan to build a real-time analytics system to track user behaviour. A big project! That I would get to spearhead! They'd budgeted 2-3 months and 6-8 people to implement it. We talked about their plans for a bit, before I asked (what I thought was) the obvious question: "So, what's the real-time system going to help you decide that the current system won't?" There is a long, uncomfortable pause as the two people look at each other, each hoping the other will answer. "Well... it's not so much the real-time element, per se..." one managed. "But we want more granular data about how people are using our app." "Okay. But you're currently doing analytics via HTTP callbacks, right? Why not just extend that to hit some new endpoints for your more granular data? You've already got infrastructure in place on the front and back end to support that." No answer. We moved on. I don't know if I actually saved them 1-2 man-years of work or if they plowed ahead anyway.