Outsourcing removed the interview process from setting up your team.  For many start-ups, that change normalized the resource pool as many outsource providers simply assign a team to the project.  In reality, there is a big difference between a developer who knows how to build an online Web store versus someone who can make Twitter scale or conceive of Ruby on Rails.

Let us help explain the difference between these types of resources.  First, we need a pyramid!

Companies have different levels or terms for engineers.  Here’s how I define them:

Web developer — A Web developer is good at creating sophisticated Web sites that have limited back end functionality.  His tools of choice are HTML/CSS/Javascript or Flash.  He loves walks in the park and open source CMS’s.

Software engineer — Software engineers are comfortable building more complex functionality that includes objects and business logic.  Ruby on Rails is the language Du jour for the hip and trendy alternative scene.  PHP is the blue collar worker’s hammer.  Java is the choice of old school guys who think the country has gone to the dogs.

Software developer — We don’t use objects, we are objects.  Pearl Jam is the new Grateful Dead.  If you haven’t modified a Unix kernal or developed in native C, then you are a poser!

Software architect — The architect is smarter than most of us, and you should avoid the ones who know it.  He spends his weekends looking for quasars or trying to eliminate a contradictory systemic anomaly from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision.

For most of your projects, your team will likely be a collection of software engineers and web developers.  The more complex the project, the more you will need developers or possibly a seasoned architect.  The pay scale rises with qualifications obviously so we tend to look for one or two smart senior guys and then back fill with a cost effective pool of highly motivated individuals.

We took a look at our some of our projects from last year and charted them against the pyramid.

Understanding the type of project you have will help when selecting your team*:

Website or application – A Web site project in this case is a project that is mostly user interface with either little or standard back end functionality.  The site might have e-commerce, user sign-ups and dynamic content.  Back end functionality is supported by existing open source tools or by integration with other sites.

Product – Product development generally includes sophisticated back end functionality along with more complex interfaces.  The project often is based on some “secret sauce” that is protected IP, under a patent or otherwise considered a market differentiator.

Framework or foundation – Framework or foundation projects are projects that create technology upon which other solutions are created.

We’re product developers and like to produce complete solutions for our clients.  Framework projects are fun and challenging though there are simply less of them.  Of course, we love a good Web site project as well.  It’s just that they tend to be shorter and require more customization work than software engineering.

Next time you start up your a new project, it might help to classify the effort within this pyramid.  You can use the classification to define what type of engineers you should be asking for.

* A complete discussion of resources should include specialists and other disciplines including designer, tester, project manager and so forth.  I am working on a follow up post to help that aspect of your resource planning.

Our high-tech revolution has plunged us into a state of continuous partial attention.

iBrain by Gary Small, M.D. and Gigi Vorgan

- A typical Monday starts by pulling my canoe out into the various communication streams.  Logging on to Skype is the watershed event.

- Skype is running.  Firefox is open with tabs for email, calendar, several Google docs, WordPress for this post and YouTube for a side project I am working on.

- I check in with my lead on Skype.  I have the same guy across a few of my projects.  This certainly streamlines the communication.  He’s in Costa Rica.  When I worked at Adobe, we used IM all the time as people worked on different floors and at different locations.

- I am acting as the product owner for one project and I clarify something about a feature we are implementing.

- On another project, our client provides detailed specifications and we review the documents to make sure we are in sync.  We are, which is good.

The new promise of collaboration is that with peer production we will harness human skill, ingenuity, and intelligence more efficiently and effectively than anything we have witnessed previously.

WIKINOMICS by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams

- Our newest client jumps on Skype to validate the release, our testing and the schedule.  There is a lot to discuss so we move to a Skype call. He does a good job managing his business to create an active and valuable community.

- Another issue comes in about how a feature should work that requires some thought.  I ignore chats and emails for the next 30 minutes and open specifications in Google docs and mock-ups in Preview.  We clarify the issue.

- By late morning, the major communications have been completed.  Projects are moving forward and our teams seem to understand what needs to happen this week.  I am responsible for a couple of releases that are in full swing.

No matter how clever the idea or great the implementation, an invention typically lives or dies depending on how well it can be integrated into a larger social or technological context.

Juice by Evan I. Schwartz

- The marketing text for our Web site update is long overdue.  Some tasks on the docket this week are for corporate business.  But I decide to focus on that side project and YouTube.

- I started a project called ReachGivers.org to help charities and non-profits get their message out over the Internet.  ReachGivers.org uses Ruby on Rails and has Twitter integration.  I added a poor man’s blog a while back as well.  This week I want to add video support.  Side projects help me stay connected with technology.

Economics is above all a science of measurement.  It comprises an extraordinarily powerful and flexible set of tools that can reliably assess a thicket of information to determine the effect of any one factor, or even the whole effect.

Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

- Off to Starbucks for a Mocha and a blueberry scone.  This happens so often that people know me by name there.  The Ethos water billboard reminds me I wanted to blog about that on ReachGivers.org after finishing the video work.

- My brain stumbles on some concepts for the marketing text and I jot down some ideas.

- I was working on a product a while back and was not that impressed with the end user documentation.  I sent a book proposal out to a technology book publisher, which turned into a series of titles, and I have been writing every since.  I love it, I really do.  I even enjoy working on marketing text and ads.

Execution is not a one-time event.  Nor is it a process where you check off goals as if your sixth-grade teacher were looking over your shoulder.

The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki.

- Shorty before noon we get a curve ball. Mid-cycle, our client needs to shift direction on a project to change the prioritization and the release date.  I’ll spend the next few days updating user stories and validating the new plan. Sometimes I feel like we’re actually better at hitting a curve ball.

- The Agile software process, which is intended for flexible development, actually advocates against this type of mid-cycle change.  Release cycles are purposely shorter so that a direction shift simply influences the next cycle.  For start-ups, next month can be years away.  We have to be more flexible.

- A site we monitor generates an alert right before I can escape for lunch.  I used to get a little rush on these mini-emergencies like working as an EMT. Now I am the ambulance driver who knows that most pick-ups are not at all like the show ER.  Still, up-time is important and so we resolve the issue as quickly as possible.

- It occurs to me that this post demonstrates why people Tweet.  Expressing myself effectively with 140 character didn’t work well for me.  I decide to try it again because I am enjoying creating this running dialog.

- We’re trying to send large Photoshop files with mock-ups.  Some days technology just seems to work against us.  We’re hitting proxy issues and time out issues.  Eventually we solve the problem and remind ourselves yet again we should standardize on an approach.  Problem is, email and Skype are so convenient and work well enough most of the time.  I guess this would be one of those warts.

Agile software development methods should be able to survive in an atmosphere of constant change and still emerge with success.

Agile Management for Software Engineering by David J. Anderson

- After 40 plus years of eating sandwiches, I still love a good sandwich.  The best sandwich in town is from the deli in Vallergus and the people at the cash register all know me by sight.

- I never get back to the post after lunch.  Clients and partners all eat at different times and issues were waiting for me when I got back.  That is definitely a typical Monday.

- I didn’t finish the marketing text either.  The text I came up with was not remarkable.  I made some small updates to our corporate site instead and also finished my changes on ReachGivers.org.  Perhaps I will think of something while winding down for the night.

- My iPhone sits by my bed.  With several releases in play, there is always a chance a developer is still working and will fire off a question.  Of course, I can’t just let the device sit there, now can I?  I pull my canoe back out into the stream and see what else I might have missed during dinner.

Business models – We think because of the current economic client and funding environment companies will be forced to focus on the business side of running a business in 2009. Closing the doors because you run out of cash is not fun for anyone. Investors will expect a real business model from startups and one that doesn’t start with, “Once we have 50,000 users…” We saw this start to happen last year at a facebook meet-up. Several people in the audience wanted to know how the top application developers were going to monetize their success. Short of acquisition, these companies didn’t have an answer. This year, they will need one. How about charging customers who use your software? Surely, if the product is valuable, people can spare $10 a month. Look at the iTunes App Store for an example of how to do this right.

Substantive content – The Internet has truly democratized content. You can post a video, publish a book, write a blog, become an expert, and really put any content you want online as soon as it’s done. But now, we consumers of content spend a lot of time searching for something worth reading let alone finding something we might remember or share. Many people who published perhaps shouldn’t have. Case in point, who better to know what’s funny or not than Will Ferrell versus some guy listing his video under comedy on YouTube? We predict in 2009 consumers of content will focus more on content they can validate or that includes some level of credibility. Sites that have credible subject matter experts or support validation of content should garner more attention in 2009.

facebook is valuable, but social networking is a feature – My non-tech family members are on facebook. The Today Show just did a segment recently about parents invading their kids playground. I even saw some not so flattering pictures of my nephew at his first year in college. facebook may not be worth 15 billion anymore, but we definitely see a new surge of friend requests and many are coming from the least likely of usual suspects. The increased user base will renew the interest in facebook and reverse the declining valuation trend. On the other hand, many other social networking sites are struggling as most companies now include common features like invites, friends, posting, sharing and profiles. We suspect it will be hard for social networking destinations to prove their value in 2009 except for those already well established like LinkedIn for business and facebook for consumers. Look to facebook, and LinkedIn, to grow their dominant position but also for them to introduce new ways to generate revenue for themselves and those around them.

Bootstrapping – As the funding pendulum swings back toward tighter controls and stringent valuations, more and more innovators will resort to the garage startup and working a day job to fund the night job. Founders won’t want to give away ownership, nor invite board members into their decision space, unless the money is good and the cost not so bad. Those caught in this downturn or in the last one in 2001 remember what it means to lose control of your company to investors. Founders will choose to retain ownership as long as possible even if their launch is delayed. We discuss the impacts of various funding models in a previous post.

The New New New Thing – It’s time for new ideas. Calling your company Web 3.0 is not a new idea (notice the version 3 in the name). Tweets. Blogs. Wikis. Community. SaaS. Good stuff that came out of Web 2.0 and before. But people are no longer interested in a new twist on an old idea. The companies that establish a new product category in 2009 will be pleasantly surprised by increased interest from people tired of hearing about yet another way to send a message or post content.

Fast launch – Is the 6 month launch obsolete? Is the 2 month launch simply a bad idea let alone doable? We provide our opinion in this post. The latest trends in development languages and technologies, especially Ruby on Rails and cloud computing, enable faster launch times through quicker process and less over-head. Development teams will be forced to make hard trade-offs this year as they struggle to meet the demands of an evolving market and shrinking development cycle.

Please let us know what you think of our predictions and what you think will be important in 2009.

I was impressed by the sessions at this conference. The technical speakers were informed and clear. They were primarily experienced based speakers which means their knowledge was born from hands on work. I find people working in the field are more interesting, relevant and accurate when compared to those talking theory. Really, if you are considering developing in Ruby on Rails, I highly recommend you attend next year.

Joel Spolksy was a great keynote speaker at the conference. I remember laughing a lot and feeling like he had an interesting point of view for his talk. He really had a laugh at the expense of Windows. Funny that Bill Gates, in an email to his people, did not find the Windows usability thing all that funny. He should have heard Joel go through it as he struggled through patches, reboots and warnings just to upload some photos from his camera.

Overall, Joel made salient points about providing good feedback to users, keeping them in control of their experience and obsessing over all aspects of the experience. To me, this was a great statement about the whole “put it out there” movement in startups driven mainly by facebook applications. Yes, it is good to get user feedback sooner rather than later, especially before embarking on a mammoth development effort. But don’t sell yourself short by releasing a product that could be better with a little more effort and time.

I had mixed thoughts about the keynote speech from David Heinemeier Hansson. Ruby on Rails is truly an innovative combination. Before I give you my opinion of the talk, let me give you some analogies for what I think is innovative.

Developing in RoR is like building a house for the first time using a nail gun instead of a hammer. It’s like the first time you drove a car with power steering and power windows. It’s like the first time you created a server side product using Web technologies where as before you had to write code to handle requests, package data, manage connections and all that ugliness. It’s like the first time you took a flight from SF to LA when you used to drive because you were in college trying to save money. It’s like…(had enough???).

David is the founder of the RoR movement. He talked about the surplus created by having a superior tool as something developers should take advantage of for personal improvement. On the whole, this is not a bad concept. David felt that developers should use the time savings to sleep more, learn to whittle or even to fly a plane. Yes, it was mostly a humorous point. Our engineers should use the fact that they have a “better, faster tool” to take time to smell the roses.

However, in my opinion, this works against why Ruby on Rails is one of the fastest growing technology movements around. People are switching to RoR because it is faster. There really isn’t enough evidence yet to say it is better than other choices like Java with Hibernate and Spring or PHP with CakePHP. The surplus time should be used to extend this advantage and get more people and companies on board. After all, who would you hire to build your house? The guy swinging an old hammer or the guy with the nail gun and power drill? And what would you think if the guy with the power tools took a nap every day on site because he knew his tools were faster than the way they used to build houses? See my point?

The reason this language is selling today is exactly because of the faster angle. If you take that away, then you don’t quite have the history and track record yet to stand up against more established technologies. You have to get over the tipping point a little and then you can take a snooze.

Before I forget to mention it, Portland, Oregon is one rocking town. If you believe the whole “smell the roses thing” that David was emphasizing, I recommend you do it there at around 11 PM on a Saturday night. I know this has very little to do with the conference. Still, I have to give credit to the conference organizers for picking a cool location.

One goal for myself at the conference was to gather information about RoR scalability issues. I can now say that I am not worried at all after listening to a panel discussion from a group of guys responsible for about 4 billion Ruby requests a month. Representatives from EngineYard, Rails Machine, LinkedIn and AOL talked through their experiences taking RoR to the max. The big take away is that people need to think of scalability in terms of the entire system. The best coders in the world can’t make poorly designed data objects or under-powered hardware go any faster, for example.

We heard a keynote talk from Kent Beck later in the week. Kent is the visionary behind many innovative ideas including Test Driven Development and Extreme Programming. I recommend you Google Kent Back then read a lot about him and his ideas. And buy his books too! But make sure you form your own opinions which I think is his real goal for everything he creates. What is super impressive is how Kent sees the big picture, long term stuff. He talked about how real change, or rather the true fruition of his creative ideas, takes on the order of 20 years to go from concept to accepted practice. Talk about a visionary! Good call on Test Driven Development Kent.

In the end, I walked away from the conference convinced more than ever that Ruby on Rails represents a next generation approach to scalable Web development. I am a true believer after listening to a dozen sessions on various topics including scalability, project management, lessons learned from Web application development, complex searching and others. But the strength of any tool is in the people who use it. After all, a good carpenter is just as effective with a hammer as a nail gun.