SocialCops’ 10 (base 10) Engineering Commandments — the values that drive everything for the #Engineering Team #InsideSocialCops 🙌

(Thread👇) Tell us if you can relate to any of these? Do you have your own values that guide your decisions? Share them with us! ⛳

0. Coder != engineer

Coders focus just on writing code to make something work. Engineers take a much wider view, focusing on both the problem and every aspect of the solution. 🤓
1. “Import lib”

It's not wise to waste time building tools or libraries if there’s already something that does the same job! Wherever possible, extend existing libraries and contribute back to the community. 💁‍♀️
2. With great power comes greater responsibility

Every choice we make on our platform and every feature we build stands up to a responsibility — helping people make more data-driven decisions and bring about real change for millions of people. 💪
3. Fail fast and keep learning

Failing fast is about doing lots of fast iterations and learning from each, rather than getting stuck on one solution or decision. 👊
4. Know thy build

Knowing your build inside and out is a crucial part of engineering. It’s not enough to know what will work and when it’ll work. It’s just as important to know what won’t work and when it won’t work. 🚧
5. #ItIsNotMagic

There is never a magical problem or a random occurrence. We expect our engineers to figure out what caused a break, not throw their hands in the air and proclaim that it’s just broken — find what is happening under the hood. 🕵️‍♀️
6. Measure whatever is measurable

While our products help organizations make better data-driven decisions, it is important for us to measure everything that we can to figure out the next course of actions. 📊
7. Automate whatever is repetitive

Our base tendency should be to automate wherever possible, rather than doing tasks manually — automation gives us more time to work on building the actual product. ✔️
8. Premature optimization is the root of all evil

Pick the right battles to fight at the right time. If you optimize too early, you’ll spend and re-spend lots of time and still come out with not the most optimized solution. 🙅
9. When in doubt, ask!

Stuck or confused? 🤔 Just ask your fellow engineers! Someone will have a solution, or at least an idea to help you get started on the right path. ➡️
We hope these were helpful — whether you’re an engineer interested in working with us or you’re forming your own team’s engineering commandments! :) Interested to learn more about #engineering culture #InsideSocialCops? Check here: https://t.co/QTVs9tf1tj

More from Society

I've seen many news articles cite that "the UK variant could be the dominant strain by March". This is emphasized by @CDCDirector.

While this will likely to be the case, this should not be an automatic cause for concern. Cases could still remain contained.

Here's how: 🧵

One of @CDCgov's own models has tracked the true decline in cases quite accurately thus far.

Their projection shows that the B.1.1.7 variant will become the dominant variant in March. But interestingly... there's no fourth wave. Cases simply level out:

https://t.co/tDce0MwO61


Just because a variant becomes the dominant strain does not automatically mean we will see a repeat of Fall 2020.

Let's look at UK and South Africa, where cases have been falling for the past month, in unison with the US (albeit with tougher restrictions):


Furthermore, the claim that the "variant is doubling every 10 days" is false. It's the *proportion of the variant* that is doubling every 10 days.

If overall prevalence drops during the studied time period, the true doubling time of the variant is actually much longer 10 days.

Simple example:

Day 0: 10 variant / 100 cases -> 10% variant
Day 10: 15 variant / 75 cases -> 20% variant
Day 20: 20 variant / 50 cases -> 40% variant

1) Proportion of variant doubles every 10 days
2) Doubling time of variant is actually 20 days
3) Total cases still drop by 50%

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