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Today we're launching the new Twitter.com! So many inspiring people worked on this 2-year project, and we learned so much. I want to share our learnings with the world, so I asked my teammates: What's the most valuable thing you learned while building the new site? 👇
"It's fascinating remaking Twitter from scratch. There's so many different features or tools, and so many little details that go into each of those! It was fun to get to ask "why" a million times and learn the history and quirks behind everything on the site." - @CharlieCroom
"The most valuable thing I learned was how to practically take a huge multi-year project and break it up into milestones that both feel more achievable, and can be more easily communicated." - @m7z
"'Just ship it', like anything, has tradeoffs. We may have over-indexed on experimentation, but it led to greater polish and ultimately a stronger product. So, I think my biggest learning is how and when to balance intuition versus data when building a product." - @beefan
"How much it matters that a codebase is fast and enjoyable to develop on. How fun it is to build a thing from the ground up. And bonus: how much a pain it is to add type safety AFTER the fact." - @katiesievert
"It's important to leave enough time for the unexpected - this leads to less stress and better code." - @hackerdreamer
"The power of collaboration and trust. As a junior engineer, my more senior teammates share knowledge and take time to mentor me, all the while trusting me with technically challenging projects. The combination of both allowed me to contribute and grow speedily!" - @anna1go
"I came to Twitter thinking a responsive site is just showing different things depending on screen size, or desktop vs mobile. But it's so much more than that! We learned we have to build with so many more params in mind: input device, network speed, i18n, a11y..." - @krosenberg
"Solutions can feel precious after spending a lot of time and energy on them. But as factors change, it’s important to be willing to put ideas aside for the sake of creating a great experience. This shouldn’t be thought of as a waste, but as a learning opportunity." - @ashlie
"When user focused engineers are able to prioritize their own work they build robust apps that make building new features a breeze. I am really proud of what we built and a big part of that story was the time and space engineers were given to sharpen their tools." - @jondkoon
"This is the first time I've worked on a complex app where it remained easy to contribute to and understand. This is due to the nature of React, and the healthy tension between folks who want to ship things quickly, and those who focus on reuse and simplicity." - @kng
"The best part of the rebuild was how end user problem focused we were throughout. We listened to our users, iterated on the problems they wrote about, and built features from the old site that they requested. It's fulfilling to let our users drive our roadmap!" - @kaushlaks
“I learned how to be a better leader - and I learned by working with the one and only @m7z. Her rigor and thoughtfulness was inspirational. Her kindness and patience is admirable. I feel extremely lucky that I get to work with her everyday💕 #sheinspiresme” - @jesarshah
"It's a wonderful reminder that I'm surrounded by genius people who are humble to listen, who are generous to advise, who are caring to encourage you to carry on." - @SkyHu
"One of my biggest realizations is what this team can accomplish in such a short period of time. There were a lot of things that happened that could have delayed the launch, but the team fought through all the challenges and shipped on time." - @pikachiao
"Persistence. It's the answer to everything. You don't have to be the most intelligent or the most knowledgeable about something, you just need to be patient enough to let persistence do its thing." - @zeppez1
"You won’t always get it right the first time, so try to build things based on an informed decision & iterate with constructive feedback. But remember, people don’t like change. No matter what you build some people will hate it, until they forget about it in a week😝" - @djegregg
"Always stay up to date with technology." - @aleximititelu
“It’s useful to have a repeatable process for feature development so that all the important bits at the edges aren’t forgotten - privacy & data protection, i18n, a11y. The process should start with a technical doc and include dogfood, bug bashes and experimentation.” - me💁♀️
"Always add padding to your estimates. Be kind and available to people that are learning. And don’t try to be perfect." - @jadeloyzaga
@jadeloyzaga "If you have a challenge you don't have the answer to, do not fear. Put it forth to your team. You will solve it together." - @equanimityhow
@jadeloyzaga @equanimityhow "The most valuable thing I've learned was to take a step back and spend the extra 15 minutes thinking about the code before asking questions, and if you're still stuck after that, don't be afraid to ask a question - no matter how silly you may think it is." - @HasumiHayashi
