Young Reacts #73 - Gatsby's Incremental Builds, Spotify Squad Myth, Basecamp's Take-home Tests
Nuance matters in reality. Whether we are responding to COVID-19, organizing our teams, or setting up an interview process, simplistic and ideological solutions will lead to suboptimal results.
Software Engineering 🌐
From Static to Real-time: Introducing Incremental Builds in Gatsby Cloud - Gatsby
As I was reading A Static Future, I kept thinking, “this wouldn’t work for my app full of ever-changing data.” But soon after, I found out that the company Gatsby released an incremental build on its platform. The holy grail of CMS. I want to follow up in a couple of months and see if it works as expected.
What It's Like To Work on League Of Legends? - Built In
Five interviews with technologists at Riot Games, the creator of League Of Legends. I enjoyed getting a glimpse of how different roles come together to build games, which I've never worked on myself.
People ❤
Failed #SquadGoals - Jeremiah Lee
The former product manager at Spotify criticizes the famous Spotify Squad model for the lack of alignment and accountability. But I also heard from my coworker from Spotify said that they updated the model in early 2018, and that she missed working as a fully autonomous unit. Your mileage may vary.
Hiring programmers with a take-home test - David Heinemeier Hansson
Take-home test is a contentious topic where people take an ideological stance. But idealism has to meet pragmatism at work. As a hiring manager, you have to get enough signal through a process acceptable to both the team and the candidates. Maybe, if you are a famed company, you may be able to get away with a more stringent interview process. But a high-quality candidate may not appreciate the extra effort your process takes.
Terminology: it's not black and white - British National Cyber Security Centre
I am pleasantly surprised by this announcement. I never expected a government agency (especially a cybersecurity agency) to eagerly update their policies to promote a more equal, accepting environment for all.
Business 💸
Impact of COVID-19 Crisis - Startup Genome Project
Since the beginning of the crisis 74% of startups have had to terminate full-time employees. 39% of all startups had to lay off 20% or more of their staff, and 26% had to let go 60% of employees or more.
The numbers speak for themselves.
The Burn Multiple - David Sacks
The Burn Multiple is defined as Net Burn (spent investment dollars) divided by Net New ARR (revenue growth) and can be used to show the efficiency of growth. Even if you are not a founder, the efficiency of your company will matter in this business climate, as shown above.