Work on traviscj/blog

tradeoffs

Tue, 01 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Life is (just) a series of tradeoffs.

DawnAnn “Mom” Johnson

I heard this so many times growing up that I think I actually stopped hearing it. But recently, I realized that it’s never been more pertinent than to my current day-to-day life as a software engineer.

The fundamental tradeoff we make on the Risk Systems team is trading off between

how much fraud we catch (and symmetrically, miss!)
how many false positives we incur to catch that much fraud

Those false positives running rampant can inhibit growth (in terms of interested customers) of the product we’re trying to protect, but letting too much fraud through can make a product too expensive (and even liable to be shut down!)

things you don't learn in grad school

Mon, 01 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

oncall exists.
the data is never available how you need it.
unit tests matter.
pushing code after 3pm is risky if you’re not willing to work all night. (courtesy Paul Joos)

even the ceo doesn't get an office

Tue, 07 Nov 2017 07:01:25 +0000

Square is a fantastic place to work, and has been for my entire time here. One thing I’m not such a fan of, though, is the open office layout we have – and share with many other startups.

Somehow I have the distinct memory of thinking, “Wow, even the CEO doesn’t get an office here! That’s really cool!” I had an important realization today, though. It’s not that the CEO of companies with open offices don’t get an office – it’s that they don’t want one.