Re:How I Estimate Work as a Staff Software Engineer
by mactavish88 on Saturday January 24, 2026 @12:05PM
(#46745284)
The exact same way you'd treat any other investment decision.
In the real world, if you've got $100k, you could choose to invest all of it into project A, or all into project B, or perhaps start both and kill whichever one isn't looking promising.
You'd need to weigh that against the potential returns you'd get from investing all or part of that money into equities, bonds, or just keeping it in cash.
Re:How I Estimate Work as a Staff Software Engineer
by xyzzy123 on Saturday January 24, 2026 @08:51PM
(#46749859)
You mean… by making a forward-looking estimates of cost, time-to-value, return? (even if it's implicit, not documented, vibes-based?).
When devs refuse to estimate, it just pushes the estimating up the org chart. Execs still have to commit resources and do sequencing. They’ll just do it with less information.
Re:How I Estimate Work as a Staff Software Engineer
by mactavish88 on Sunday January 25, 2026 @11:32AM
(#46755509)
What you're asking is the equivalent of going to a company whose equity you've bought and asking them: what's the price going to be in 6 months' time?
If you cannot (or refuse to) estimate cost or probability of success in a timebox you have no way to figure out ROI.
To rationally allocate money to something, someone has to do the estimate.