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If you (still) work at Twitter and you can code, head to the HQ now

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Re: If you (still) work at Twitter and you can code, head to the HQ now

#591

Post by khazhoux »

piva00 wrote: post #584
khazhoux wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I completely disagree with the premise here that only a minority of the software organization should actually be expected to deliver code. As a manager, it’s not in my job description anymore. And when I put on an architect hat, my output is design docs and aligning many different opinions between teams. Also, the senior-most people on my team are no longer coding 100% of their time (they’re designing, reviewing,…

> only mentoring others and attending meetings and writing design docs (as someone else suggested here) If you are mentioning a previous comment of mine [1] in this thread I think you're grossly misrepresenting my words. And if so I definitely take offense in that as it's not only uncharitable, it's completely missing the point and reducing a brief expansion based on one of your questions to "only attending meetings…

No, that was about someone else who posted that they would not expect even half of software developers, to be actually writing code. I found that statement bizarre.

Like, yeah of course the top engineers find themselves less and less hands-on-keyboard as they turn more to technical leadership roles. But some people seem to be arguing that code isn’t the bread and butter work for majority of developers. Who’s doing the actual work then, is my question for them.

Re: If you (still) work at Twitter and you can code, head to the HQ now

#593

Post by PuppyTailWags »

b112 wrote: post #560
PuppyTailWags wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the cost of Twitter Blue was to actively drive away your major revenue stream, the advertisers. When you're saddled with a ton of debt actively driving away your revenue doesn't seem like MBA-101 to me.

Unless those advertisers won't be coming along into the new, changed twitter anyhow.

That still doesn't look good to your future revenue stream, because you've costed at least one client over a billion dollars. Why would your future revenue stream pay you?

Re: If you (still) work at Twitter and you can code, head to the HQ now

#594

Post by Uhhrrr »

readthenotes1 wrote: post #520

What an opportunity to bring a blank page and claim to have deleted thousands of lines of clutter while still delivering functionality

Usually when you pull off a large negative LoC change there's some pretty good code to show off in place of it.

Re: If you (still) work at Twitter and you can code, head to the HQ now

#595

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

nemo44x wrote: post #369
martin_a wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You read the news that he cancelled working from home and then locked everybody out of office? Does that look like a plan to you? Does anything that happend in the last weeks look like a plan to you? The blue checkmark disaster for example?

It looks like MBA-101, just accelerated a lot. Drop the bottom, identify the best of the best, ask everyone else to commit or get out. The solid core replaces them with the top performers in their network they want to work with. I'm convinced Twitter Blue was a test to see who gets shit done there, to help identify the top performers. Obviously the trick is keeping the top performers.

It doesn't sound like he's gone about optimising for talent, though. More like he's optimised for enthusiasm — which isn't a bad thing, but doesn't necessarily correlate with talent — and desperation. The majority of the most talented people aren't going to stay around for the abuse, they'll leave for better jobs elsewhere. Surely MBA-101 isn't "treat people like shit and you'll get the best out of them"?

Re: If you (still) work at Twitter and you can code, head to the HQ now

#596

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

Kon-Peki wrote: post #397
andreysolsty wrote: post #331

If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from this whole debacle, it’s that US employment law is fucked. I can’t believe worker protections are so poor in such a forward thinking, modern country. The things he’s getting away with sound like something out of a Victorian factory.

Nobody knowledgeable is going to argue that US employment law is great, but in much of the US worker protections are targeted towards those that do not make a lot of money. Twitter's software developers make a lot of money. The only similarity to a Victorian factory worker is that they have two arms and legs (but all of their fingers and toes).

Is it just software developers that he's fired, though? I was under the impression he's been firing from pretty much every department.

Re: If you (still) work at Twitter and you can code, head to the HQ now

#597

Post by someguy212 »

FireBeyond wrote: post #351
someguy212 wrote: post #8

Guess that means the office is no longer closed. I just hope whoever processes severance checks is still working.

> I just hope whoever processes severance checks is still working. In the dotcom era, I was in the middle of a mass layoff. At the meeting, "everybody go back to your desk and dial extension 1234, and you will get a message with your employment status, instructions and next steps". PBX crashed. PBX took a while being brought back up because, well, the people responsible for supporting it wanted to find out whether _t…

I'm not enjoying how many comparisons lately I am hearing to the dotcom era.

Re: If you (still) work at Twitter and you can code, head to the HQ now

#598

Post by Kye »

cloverich wrote: post #527
albertopv wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Changes to a system can come in many ways, e.g. we had a noticeable increase in our db size because of a new customer data, what was ok. before wasn't after. Of course it's different for twitter. And what about security? Update to libraries, dependencies...?

Of course but this is also twitter, not a startup in its infancy. I'm not saying new stuff won't happen (etc), but they have a very mature infra org.

Do they? It's hard to tell where these cuts are happening and how much thought is going into them.

Re: If you (still) work at Twitter and you can code, head to the HQ now

#599

Post by xwdv »

dont__panic wrote: post #230
xwdv wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software Engineers aren’t doing things all the time but there is a tremendous amount of company knowledge and experience locked up in them. You basically pay to keep them employed for when you need them. They are paid for value not hours.

Well said. I think this is where the 4-day work week and WFH pushes in the software industry get their momentum: most of us don't need to work 40 hours in an office with a manager looking over our shoulder to provide that value.

Problem is a lot of people just don’t understand this because they’re used to having a 1:1 relationship between the hours they work and the value they deliver.

Re: If you (still) work at Twitter and you can code, head to the HQ now

#600

Post by stefan_ »

Teandw wrote: post #447
dont__panic wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon has clearly read enough Hacker News to ask the question we've all been asking for the last... 5? 10? years. "What do all of those engineers do at [Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/Netflix/Google]". That's a fine question to ask -- it's clear that plenty of those engineers aren't contributing real value. They're working on passion projects, or side projects like React or Docusaurus, or pie-in-the-sky next-gen products,…

"...and looks like he's on the cusp of running a company that's been around for over a decade into the ground in the next few weeks." What do you base that on? There's no evidence to point the company is going downhill or improving at the moment. You seem to be basing this on a personal hatred for Elon and nothing else.

His acquisition bumped the burn rate up by a sweet billion dollars a year while his conduct maximized spooking off any advertising clients still left in an impending recession.
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