News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:What software engineers can learn from the rapid collapse... by throwawaythekey on Thursday April 07, 2022 @09:49PM (#30952453)
I interviewed at Fast last year as an experienced startup engineer. I was given the "describe a production incident you were involved in" question.

I detailed a case where a recent deploy I had done had resulted in elevated error rates for some of our clients and how I had solved it with a quick follow up push to prod. The interviewer asked why it wasn't caught in staging and I mentioned that it could have been but as a small company we have to make velocity vs bug tradeoffs and in general it feels like we are currently at a sweet spot. The interviewer was unwilling to explore that space at all, or the concept that different companies might want to land in different places.

Later I was given feedback that I did exceptionally well in the technical interviews but the company didn't want any cowboys on their team. All of that is probably just a long way of confirming the other anecdotes in this thread that from the outside fast seemed somewhere between delivery hostile and overly cautious.

Re:What software engineers can learn from the rapid collapse... by forgingahead on Friday April 08, 2022 @07:21AM (#30955608)
This is hilarious - velocity vs. bug tradeoffs is a key balancing act that every startup does, and you were totally right in what you were doing, also with your point that other companies may choose differently and that's also totally fine.

But to be deemed as a cowboy - utterly hilarious, given where they ended up. Pretty cowboy with the investor money instead I reckon?

Re:What software engineers can learn from the rapid collapse... by omarfarooq on Friday April 08, 2022 @04:03AM (#30954505)
What exactly is meant by "cowboy" here?
Re:What software engineers can learn from the rapid collapse... by orzig on Friday April 08, 2022 @04:36AM (#30954696)
Not OP but in tech cowboy often means "taking unacceptable risks to increase velocity". In this case, shipping code without integration tests in Staging. whether that risk was 'unacceptable' is the difference of opinion at issue.

Fun fact: The 2011 article Cowboys and Pit Crews (https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/cowboys-and-pit-cre...) points out that modern cowboys actually spend a lot of time on communication and checklists.

Re:What software engineers can learn from the rapid collapse... by nicd on Friday April 08, 2022 @04:33AM (#30954683)
Someone who plays it "fast and loose" in terms of engineering (for example, deploying straight to prod). As parent mentions- this isn't necessarily a bad thing depending on the context (but "cowboy" here has a negative connotation).
Re:What software engineers can learn from the rapid collapse... by strikelaserclaw on Friday April 08, 2022 @12:30PM (#30959204)
oof, i described myself as a cowboy at a interview i did last year to a higher up, no wonder i didn't get the job even though i did well on their technical exams. I always took cowboy coder to mean someone who had independence and resilience to get things done even if the environment isn't conducive towards that.