Just to push back a bit, the promise/allure of software engineering is that you can have massive impact with a small dedicated team. Eg. WhatsApp had ~20 employees and was delivering more messages than the global SMS system.
Yes, I agree, but partially that is due to the cost of replication being negligible to the product manufacturer - the user bears the primary cost, being the device.
Also, 20 people, while it could happen, I doubt they self organised. There was at least one person with an architectural vision, plus there would have been back end, front end, mobile variants all needing to coordinate, I would have thought there was a number of "planners and organisers" and a number of "doers" in the mix, not to mention maybe some testing specialists.
I've not seen any background to the WhatsApp team and story, it would be interesting if anyone has any good links.
airbreather|3 years ago
Also, 20 people, while it could happen, I doubt they self organised. There was at least one person with an architectural vision, plus there would have been back end, front end, mobile variants all needing to coordinate, I would have thought there was a number of "planners and organisers" and a number of "doers" in the mix, not to mention maybe some testing specialists.
I've not seen any background to the WhatsApp team and story, it would be interesting if anyone has any good links.