alt Hacker NewsI used to work in the semiconductor industry writing internal tools for the company. Hardware very rarely missed a deadline and software was run the same way.
Things rarely went to plan, but as soon as any blip occured, there'd be plans to trim scope, crunch more, or push the date with many months of notice.
Then I joined my first web SaaS startup and I think we didn't hit a single deadline in the entire time I worked there. Everyone thought that was fine and normal. Interestingly enough, I'm not convinced that's why we failed, but it was a huge culture shock.
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What was the thing you were estimating? R&D?
I think you were estimating time to build things that were out of R&D and you had specifications that were actual specifications you were building up to.
In SaaS my experience is: someone makes up an idea not having any clue how existing software is working or is laid out, has no specifications beside vague not organized bunch of sentences. Software development team basically starts R&D to find out specifications and what is possible - but is expected to deliver final product.
> I used to work in the semiconductor industry writing internal tools for the company. Hardware very rarely missed a deadline and software was run the same way.
Former Test Engineer here. It was always fun when everyone else’s deadline slipped but ours stayed the same. Had to still ship on the same date even if I didn’t have silicon until much later than originally planned.