How Do Different Types of Companies Typically Ship Their Products?

The process of releasing a product can vary significantly across different types of companies, each with its unique approach to quality checks and product management. This article delves into the typical practices and considerations of startups, traditional companies, and large tech organizations.

Startups: Prioritizing Speed and Iteration

Startups often opt for a more streamlined and agile process, targeting rapid iteration and quick release cycles. While this approach is highly effective for gaining early traction, it can also pose challenges in terms of product quality and user experience. Startups typically conduct fewer quality checks compared to other types of companies, focusing more on moving their product to market as quickly as possible.

As startups grow and gain user feedback, they often face the need to stabilize their products and minimize the risk of regressions and bugs. At this stage, these companies have a choice: they can either hire more quality assurance (QA) engineers or invest in automated testing and continuous integration (CI) tools. Both paths aim to strike a balance between speed and quality, ensuring that their products evolve steadily without compromising on user satisfaction.

Traditional Companies: Emphasis on QA Teams

Traditional companies, on the other hand, tend to rely more heavily on dedicated QA teams. These teams typically conduct comprehensive testing to ensure that the product meets all functional and non-functional requirements. The development process in these organizations is often branch-based, meaning that different branches of the codebase are developed and merged into the main branch (trunk) at more controlled intervals.

Code generally gets pushed to production based on a predefined schedule, such as weekly, or even less frequently, after thorough quality assurance checks. This approach ensures that the product is thoroughly tested before it reaches the end users, minimizing the risk of bugs and ensuring a stable release. These scheduled deployments are a hallmark of traditional companies, highlighting their commitment to quality over speed.

Large Tech Companies: Investment in Automation and Infrastructure

Large technology companies represent a different spectrum, where the emphasis is on a high level of automation and robust infrastructure. These companies invest heavily in tools and technologies that enable rapid, reliable, and continuous deployment. Automated tests play a crucial role in these environments, providing quick feedback and ensuring that changes to the code are validated before they reach production.

Trunk-based development is often the norm in these organizations, with feature flags and staged rollouts being common practices. These techniques allow developers to experiment with new features without destabilizing the main branch, thereby reducing merge conflicts and ensuring smooth deployments. Some large tech companies can see over 100 changes on the trunk every day, highlighting the need for sophisticated tooling to manage these changes efficiently.

The Case Study: Facebook

Facebook offers a unique perspective, especially when it comes to product release strategies. While it may not have as many automated tests as some other tech giants, Facebook invests heavily in a sophisticated canary deployment system. This system involves rolling out the product through four different environments: a testing environment with automated checks, a production-like environment used by all employees, a test market targeting a smaller region, and finally, to all users.

In every stage of this deployment, metrics are closely monitored. If any metrics deviate from expected values, the rollout automatically halts, ensuring that any issues are caught and addressed before they affect a broader user base. This rigorous process exemplifies Facebook's commitment to quality and user experience, even when moving at a rapid pace.

Personal Experiences and Lessons Learned

Based on personal experiences or observations, it's clear that different companies have varying approaches to product release, each with its own pros and cons. For instance, startups may prioritize speed to gain early traction, while traditional companies focus on thorough testing and quality assurance.

Successful practices often involve a balance between speed and quality. Startups can benefit from adopting more rigorous testing methods early on to avoid major issues down the line. Traditional companies can enhance their release processes by incorporating more automation and CI tools to streamline their development cycles. Large tech companies can continue to invest in sophisticated deployment strategies that ensure high-quality releases even in fast-paced environments.

Ultimately, the key to successful product release lies in understanding the company's goals, resources, and market needs, and adapting the release strategy accordingly. Whether it's a startup, a traditional company, or a large tech organization, the goal is to ensure that the product is both reliable and meets the expectations of end-users.