Reddit isn’t profitable, despite having more than 50 million daily active users. In preparation for an IPO, CEO Steve Huffman put the platform’s API
Reddit isn’t profitable, despite having more than 50 million daily active users. In preparation for an IPO, CEO Steve Huffman put the platform’s API
I’m a software dev, I can fairly claim to be a software engineer as well
It’s not just having a product owner. We have a parable…
A manager asks a senior dev how long it will take him to build a thing. He says 9 months. They ask how long if they get another couple devs on it - he says 8 months. He asks how long if they add a dozen people, and he says it will never be finished
There’s plenty of variations, but it’s not a joke - how many people built the Linux kernel? How many built C? How many built Apache, how many built transformers, how many built osX?
The answer to the best technologies is always 1 or 2, maybe with helpers. The more people you add, the harder it is to innovate - you can polish all day long, but 1 sharp person can build something better than a dozen equally sharp people. One brilliant person is more effective than one brilliant person with a dozen helpers
It’s all about quality, quantity only weighs down the process
At one of my previous gigs our boss was big on the “double the devs/half the time” mentality. Our favorite response was
9 women can't make a baby in 1 monthI think this is somewhat overstated (also a dev), but there’s definitely truth to it. The division of work needs to be clear from the start, and ideally the design done collaborative to really have additional devs help.
Part of the problem is we all think different, so even two brilliant devs can step on each others toes and cause problems if they’re not synced up on what the plan is.
Unix has a similar backstory. Prior to its existence, there was a project called Multics aimed at enabling efficient sharing of a computer among multiple users. However, with a lot of teams involved, the project became overwhelmed by excessive complexity and stalled, eventually being regarded as a costly burden and dismantled.
Later, the guys who would later develop the programming language C joined forces and created Unix. They drew inspiration from Multics but took a much simpler approach, and added some innovative ideas. The result was a remarkable achievement.