Twitter doesn’t need 7,500 employees
I’m not a professional software engineer, but I graduated from the University of California, Berkeley & Cornell University in computer science, and many of my classmates are now running engineering teams in Tech.
Here is the tech infrastructure for Twitter by “VP of Infrastructure and Operations” Mazdak Hashemi:
The Infrastructure Behind Twitter: Scale
There’s basically (1) a huge database (tweet storage), (2) a way to store/retrieve tweets efficiently (fancy names like “Hadoop, Manhattan, Blobstore”), and (3) a “front-end.”
Although I am oversimplifying for a general audience, this is “by and large” the core architecture – ex fancy stuff like “deterministic load balancing.” I myself spent a month on load-balancing algos @ Berkeley.
This is software engineering 101.
Anyone who has taken a “Ruby on Rails” web dev course can build a simple Twitter-like site (albeit not at scale).
My naïve guess is the engineering team is actually paid to enhance reliability, infrastructure security, database scaling, and user moderation/policies (see censoring Trump).
You don’t need 7,500 employees to do that.
Many of these employees are 100% remote, highly-paid software engineers who have refused to return to the office since COVID-19.
To give you a sense of Tech comp for a “Senior Software Engineer” from the always popular Blind:
Senior Software Engineer Twitter Compensation – Blind (teamblind.com)
215k base
50k sign-on
606k stock over 4 years ~ 152k + RSU annual refresh
20% annual bonus
Total Annual Comp: 450k
For 3.5 years of experience. Yes, 3.5 years for a 100% remote job for a 25-year-old college grad with a C.S. degree.
A junior role (a promotion from entry-level), and one is making more than most U.S. medical doctors.
An oncologist – who actually “makes the world a better place” by saving cancer patients – barely makes 400k after a decade.
Tell me another job with that compensation and job requirements?
Reality check?
COVID-19 began in 2020 & these engineers have “worked from home” for 3 years now (I know a girl who lives in Hawaii but she is “based in our SF office”).
I’m genuinely sorry about the layoffs & families that are negatively impacted – especially during the holidays – but this has been a long time coming, no?
Given ludicrous comp, I don’t think anyone will be starving.
One may have to downgrade from a Porsche 911 to a Toyota Prius & get a refund on that ski trip to Gstaad.
Cry me a river.
And now a class-action lawsuit?!
Private employment contracts are usually at-will, so just please stop.
You’re embarrassing yourself for future employers.
Elon Musk is trying to build a lean profitable business – not a charity for slacking off at Lake Tahoe on Mondays in shorts (sorry for being so direct).
One final detail.
Musk bought Twitter.
Updates:
11/4: Musk fires 3,700 employees.
11/5: Jack Dorsey apologizes for “growing company too quickly.”
11/10: Musk asks staff to return to the office.
Written by Andy Vo, CFA
