What software engineers can learn from the rapid collapse of Fast
I was an engineer at Fast for over a year and wanted to clarify a few points--
- engineers did have access to data and could write their own queries to check revenue (but few people did until the article came out).
- the strategy leadership decided on was to go after massive enterprise sellers which would, in theory, result in step-change functions in revenue. Many people knew about the low numbers but were willing to let the strategy play out for a while. There was a lot of excitement internally around closing the first $1B+ seller
- Internally, the culture was something akin to &quot;toxic positivity&quot; which meant that we weren&#x27;t willing to discuss failures or misses in a productive way
- The company spent a lot of money on marketing events including sponsorship deals with the Tampa Bay Lightning and the rumored million dollar concert by the Chain Smokers. People are talking a lot about high engineer salaries but IMO those were far from the biggest problem (possible biased view)<p>The story is a lot more complicated and nuanced than the headlines you read in publications but I will say that Fast was full of really talented folks who I&#x27;d be happy to work with again. For me, a big lesson I took away from this experience is the perils of an overly positive fully remote culture. It&#x27;s very easy for leadership to hide things from people when information doesn&#x27;t easily spread across different organizations