Obstacles & Patterns To Maximize Flow in IT Operations • Ben Rockwood • GOTO 2013
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2IfgkL5_poAsk HN: Should we bring software dev in-house?
571–580 of 607 posts
Re: Ask HN: Should we bring software dev in-house?
#572Earlier quoted context omitted.
That sounds like you're trying to rewrite the whole app, NEVER do that[0]. You shouldn't end up with appv1, v2, v3. You should have appv1 along with appv1-foobarmeasurement-v2 running. Then you slowly move traffic to v2 of foobarmeasurement until it can handle 100% of the load and has all the features - then you remove that feature from appv1 completely. Then you GOTO 10 and pick a new feature to slowly strangle. [0]…
My point is that if the rewrite is not able to be classified as a refactor, it wont work. It has to be entirely invisible to the user (and product side of the org). Otherwise, it is never going to be completed.
That's literally the point of the strangler fig pattern :)
The difference between a rewrite and refactor is a bit vague and nor easy to determine when talking theoretically.
Re: Ask HN: Should we bring software dev in-house?
#573Hi, I’ve done this exact thing for a client of mine in freight. The approach was similar - build an “internal” team and develop out a replacement product for their customs and general freight systems.
The EDIFACT / EDI stuff is annoying but once you crack that it’s basically CRUD.
The other challenge is ingesting carrier prices and the management of the rates. No carrier has the same format and API’s get mixed results (if they have them!)
Re: Ask HN: Should we bring software dev in-house?
#574IME what works best getting new projects kick started is hiring a very small team of senior freelancers, making one of them lead, and letting them loose. I worked on such a team once and it was really excellent. The advantage of this strategy is if the experiment doesn't work out, terminating freelancers is much easier than permanent (I noted you're based in Europe). Contrary to what other people said, I wouldn't try…
I cant beleive people actually are telling the guy that letting some developers loose on this project is actually a good idea. Some issues with this approach
- How does this team with just a lead determine the business and domain rules? It sounds like the application is quite complex. Letting some freelancers go at it is the worst thing you can do for an application that is meant to handle hundreds of millions in revenue - Long term maintenance. Who is going to do the knowledge transfer and maintenance of this application as it grows and the freelancers leave? - Who is interfacing with the clients? With the existing software developers? Do you really think devs are going to be doing this?
So many things wrong with this approach. Please stop telling the guy to adopt this? And top sending him your emails when he is just asking for advice. Just because you want to jump onto this project as you see $$$ signs. Jesus.
Re: Ask HN: Should we bring software dev in-house?
#575What struck me is "company-specific and mission-specific" vs "NOT mission specific such as the domain of library or platform functionality."
The current method is hurting mission-specific achievements. That doesn't mean you now need to implement a generic (say) EDIFACT library or platform. Hell no to that!
But the current platform does not allow the current people to implement these mission-specific functions quickly enough. The problem sounds like it may be at that boundary: people and quickly enough.
One direction would be to add people (freelancers easiest for a start) who can ADD better platforms and libraries' functionalities to the overall system - while the current overall system keeps doing what it's doing. That was a common issue in my world and solved readily enough. Replacing the current system is unlikely to be practical quickly or cheaply, while adding side functions and side architecture might be pretty easy, beyond what the current people can manage. And that would achieve "business requirements" without falling in love with each such solution.
After that, 80% is fine if it's the RIGHT 80%: Perhaps there are 2 EDIFACT platforms in use to achieve the specific function your business needs. In the sense of suboptimal but getting the job done.
(Added to that, to me it's normal if parts of solutions get duplicated or redone for a different platform or library. That goes with "not falling in love" with any such solution. Just parts. Not the whole thing at once.)
Re: Ask HN: Should we bring software dev in-house?
#576Earlier quoted context omitted.
Employer tax contributions Office space Hardware and software, SaaS licensing, cloud costs, etc. Hiring costs (recruitment, recruiters, time lost in selection and hiring) Secondary cost to rest of the business to change processes, retrain, integrate, help the dev team understand requirements, effectively build and iterate, etc. Quite possibly a bunch of compliance, security, audit, pen testing, and other regulatory c…
Do you know what a freelancer is? You don’t make tax contributions for them. They bring their own hardware and usually software unless otherwise agreed. The rest of the stuff is just a laundry list you made up to try and blow costs way past what they actually could be if you’re prudent. Come on
Stop giving the guy horrible advice. IF you think throwing some freelance devs with no business support/product/UX support is going to help him, you are so mistaken. Trying to rebuild an existing complex software system that handles hundreds of millions in revenue is not going to be an easy task. You are going to put the man into a corner and ruin him. Jesus.
Re: Ask HN: Should we bring software dev in-house?
#577Earlier quoted context omitted.
His prices are so wild that I would be surprised if anyone agrees with him.
~10 FTEs, US, 75% percentile salaries, fully loaded, 1.5-3M. Figure that team salaries is probably about 50% of the total software cost (hosting, support, tooling, on call, management overhead, recruiting, training etc)$3-$5M. Rounded to the nearest 0.5 for convenience. We got about ~4 bits of data from the OP, so I didn’t put too much work into making my estimate precise. I prefer to get the ‘software is fucking exp…
Lol
Avg salary in the U.S. is 105k. Better to go on average as you’re not going to high 10 seniors. That would be dumb. Hell getting 10 for an in house app is just as dumb. Hosting? On an in house app. If they spend more than 100k in the first year that’s dumb too. Support for an in house app? That’s part of the dev team. Tooling? For what? Some IDEs and few dev tools like slack etc. Let’s bundle it with their equipment. 100k for some computers and software.
I don’t understand how HN has to always look at the extreme pessimistic side to everything. The type of people here are the ones who go into a business and spend insane amounts of money building junk software wanting to pull in 5 different databases, 3 caches, elastic search and host their 10 years on 25 “microservices” hosted in docker that falls over multiple times a day when 95% of the software people on HN build could be hosted on a couple of load balancer servers with a single db instance. Spend way too much money trying to solve non existent problems.
Re: Ask HN: Should we bring software dev in-house?
#578Please dont listen to the people in here telling you to just throw some devs on to this project. You will ultimately fail since it seems you yourself are not capable of leading a software development project.
Yea you can bring it in house. Can you purchase the existing software? Then rather than do a rewrite, work towards rebuilding/refactoring. Please dont listen to the people here telling you to do a rewrite. It will fail or go way longer than you expect with many issues.
If you can start hiring some devs/UX/infra people and work alongside exiting team. Once they build up knowledge and are ready to take over the project, then they can start taking proper ownership and rebuilding and extending parts of the system. Slowly slowly you will not only build up the expertise and team but be will have a fully functioning dev team owning the system end to end. Focus on hiring good people with a strong focus on senior people and building up knowledge of the software system.
Re: Ask HN: Should we bring software dev in-house?
#579Earlier quoted context omitted.
For compensation. The carrying cost of an employee is usually twice their total compensation.
He said freelancers. Median compensation for senior engineers in Europe is nowhere near 150k. Even in Switzerland.
Any sensible freelancer will have an hourly rate nearly double that of a fulltime employee for obvious reasons. Please stop telling him just to hire a bunch of dev freelancers. Projects like this require UX and business domain understanding. Devs are not going to be doing that. This thread is full of amateurs parading as experienced CTOs.
Re: Ask HN: Should we bring software dev in-house?
#580Earlier quoted context omitted.
For compensation. The carrying cost of an employee is usually twice their total compensation.
Freelancers.
Any sensible freelancer will have an hourly rate nearly double that of a fulltime employee for obvious reasons. Please stop telling him just to hire a bunch of dev freelancers. Projects like this require UX and business domain understanding. Devs are not going to be doing that. This thread is full of amateurs parading as experienced CTOs.