Do you want to be right or successful?

[A letter from CTO to Preply engineers to kick-off Q3–2020]

From time to time an engineer at Preply shares with me their thoughts that we need to invest more time into technologies and architecture (eg. service-oriented approach, kafka, k8s update, you name it).

I accept that and agree in full that beauty of the code and architecture is important, however, I would like you to consider a relative scale: What is more important, customers or code?

For me, the answer is obvious: customers are the lifeblood of any business. They pay us money for the value our business creates, and with this money, we pay our team.

No customers means no money, to put it simply.

I like how the metaphor of “Building boxes, not arches” describes it:

Building boxes, not arches. Programmers and architects generally appreciate elegance in their design. And often the designs are sufficiently general that a significant investment needs to be made in the platform before producing anything of value. […] this process likened to building using arches, where the structure can stand on its own until the last piece (the keystone) is slotted in at the top to hold everything together. This may be elegant, but in the sprint to finding repeatable product fit in a market, showing value and getting customer feedback is critical. […]

We all assume that a better code/architecture makes next iterations easier, so we subconsciously think that business needs better software. The sad truth is, this hypothesis cannot be tested. You can’t turn back time to see what would have been, if you designed things better, whereas if your routine features and “unsexy” technology bring in happy customers to your business, the result is tangible — the business grows.

I would like to ask you, as a developer, to think about two scenarios on the opposite sides of the spectrum:

Scenario A

• Your friends and acquaintances are excited when you tell them where you work because either they or their friends used your product or heard about it on the news
• You get invited to speak at conferences because you work at a “hot” and successful startup, the best one at your location. Your talk is, hopefully, a keynote, since people like winners.
• Your financial compensation grows, now that the company is earning more and does regular salary reviews, moreover apart from the salary, as the valuation of the company grows your ESOP increases in value
• You LinkedIn CV attracts recruiters because you ‘have done it before’ — built (hopefully) a billion-dollar company yourself (or were a part of the team who did).

Scenario B

• Some of your friends appreciate the coolness of a couple of technologies you use at work
• You submit your talks to conferences and they get accepted, especially when they fit the hype trend
• Your compensation grows when you either change the company or depends on the company getting lucky (eg. raising a round)
• Your LinkedIn CV says that you are an awesome technical specialist, a lot of recruiters get in touch, but your career potential depends on luck, whether you are able to find the “hot” company with cool technologies you will be interested to work at

Basically, in the extreme, these two scenarios answer just one question: do you want to play or you want to win?

We at Preply are asking developers to apply all their skills, not just the skills of typing code or researching technologies. One important skill is critical thinking. We’re not saying “don’t improve code”, we’re asking you to always be thinking and conscious of decisions you make.

Writing code for its internal beauty is entertaining: you focus on the process, not on the end result. It drives your endorphins up, it is not stressful, it is even addictive sometimes, but unfortunately, most of the time, it does very little for our end-customers. I believe that we at Preply can positively influence the lives of millions for the better, but to do that — we need to succeed in business.

Much like professional athletes, we at Preply play for the win.