Seems odd to take this advice from a company like Twitter when you compare them to companies like Instagram and WhatsApp. How to keep a lot of engineers busy and burn a lot of money, they could offer lots of good tips there.
To me, this is obvious. I find it extremely valuable to spend time making things more efficient and clear. Even if the time spent doesn't save that much time, but makes things less frustrating, it's a big win to me. There's a lot to be said for having processes that are predictable, that don't randomly have issues that require taking time out of your day to resolve before you get to your actual problem. I'd be surprised if there was a significant percentage of companies that don't spend at least some time solving these types of problems. I think the question that this article brings up, is what that ratio should be to actually gain.
Here's the problem with tools and process:<p>They're a cost center and not a revenue generator.<p>When you've got a group that provides no measurable revenue they will <i>always</i> be at a disadvantage to the group that provides the money train. This is why you see a systematic de-valuing of tools and iteration improvement despite the massive gains they provide.
I didn't realize that <i>that</i> Peter Seibel (author of <i>Practical Common Lisp</i>) worked at Twitter. Neat.<p>The article is pretty hand wavey, although the point made feels to be along the right lines; I'm left wondering what data supports the claims.
Sometimes(read: most of the times) the tech debt and other code issues arise from the last min requirements although as dev. we try make sure the code is robust enough to absorb these changes seldom this happens.<p>What I have seen is effective for me is to sit down with pen and paper and describe the problem at hand and then think about the solution write up.
Looking at Whatsapp and Instagram's engineering teams' sizes, could twitter do with less than 100 engineers?<p>If yes than what justifies having thousands when 50 would do? How does an organization get to that point?