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Comment by achrono | Hacker News Reader

While this satisfies some idle curiosity, I don't really get what justifies spending the resources in posting such stuff.

Is this a recruitment tactic somehow for such companies?

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Probably, yeah.

But I’m always shocked for some inexplicable reason to hear that places like McDonalds and Walmart Labs are interested in solving tech problems. But I mean obviously, of course they are.

Good to be reminded now and then that there are alternatives to contributing to the ad/social media panopticon, right?

Yeah, you can work on making people fat or destroying labour unions! /s

It is often an OKR for senior/staff developers to write blogs or tech articles to promote the companies engineering culture, especially for organisations that are not 'traditional' tech firms.

TIL that OKR means "Objectives and Key Results".

You're one of today's lucky 10k :)

I understood that reference :)

I have a hunch that's part of it. I also think they're trying to show that they're as technically competent as Chik-fil-A, who has been doing this for a while now.

https://medium.com/chick-fil-atech

Thinking about it, that makes sense, given how gargantuan Chick-Fil-A is, but the two chains leave very different impressions to me. Chick-Fil-A feels like they're going out of their way to make it seem like there are friendly humans running everything, to the point of having employees with tablets stand outside at the drive-thru to take your order; lately, they've even been laying off the robotic "my pleasure" thing. McDonald's, on the other hand, feels like a clumsy extraterrestrial sidling up and saying "What is up, my fellow human, amirite?" The one by me is obsessed with pushing the little how-are-we-doing survey on the receipt; I don't think I've ever been there and not been given one. When I see their TV commercials, I keep expecting a flurry of tentacles to burst out of the smiley-person suits. But under the hood, they're both furiously optimizing everything they can.

For better or worse, Chick-fil-A is very obsessive about its standards and its quality. I grew up in Atlanta (where CFA was founded/based) and have had lots of friends who have worked for CFA over the years in various positions. Even in high school, CFA was considered the best fast-food job you could get (and better than some retail jobs) because it paid better than almost anyone else. The downside was there was a strict dress code (no visible piercings or tattoos, short hair for men, etc.) and an understanding that everyone had to be very well-behaved, but like, that comes through in the service.

Beyond that, with a handful of exceptions (I think mostly airports and college campuses), CFA owns all their restaurants, unlike the typical franchise arrangement that McDonald's popularized. You still have independent operators, but they don’t own the restaurant and have to go through a rigorous selection process to even get one. And then, the franchisee only pays like $10,000 upfront, and CFA pays the rest of the costs to build the restaurant. Individual restaurants control their own hiring and marketing and whatnot, but this is all a very top-down approach that needs to align with corporate.

McDonald's outright owns some of its restaurants, but most are owned and run by franchisees, and usually a franchisee owns more than one location. They license the brand, food, and process, but a lot of the day to day standards are decided by the franchise groups. Whereas CFA operators have less leeway for such things.

It's my understanding that CFA franchisees are only allowed to own one store (unlike MCD), and must work in their restaurant full-time.

That's a significant difference from how MCD stores are operated and it shows.

I would never had guessed that Chic-fil-A was considered a contender to McDonald's in technical competency. I drive up and a person standing outside takes my order and asks my name. Then I drive up some more and another person asks me my name and punches something into a tablet, and then I drive up some more and get to the window.

This is 2022. Businesses already have queueing software that automatically takes images of the vehicle to match with your order. I get that some customers like having the "human factor," but there's definitely room for improvement.

They have humans do it because it is faster. Significantly faster, in fact, to go car to car, rather than have each car drive up to a window to order. It also allows them to have multiple lines running at once. And it is probably just as fast to have to person handing you food just ask your name so they can make sure to pass it off efficiently.

Chick-fil-A is the only chain where you will reliably see a massive line (often backing up to the freeway) on any given lunch hour (or a massive in-person line in New York City) that will still get you out and get you served more efficiently than another drive-thru (or walk up shop) that is 1/4 as busy.

But you can have multiple lines running at once. McDonald's already does this at busy locations. I find it dubious to say that they get your order out more efficiently. For one, having a massive line is a potential sign of inefficiency. Also, there's no technical reason I can see why asking your name from a second person to order your queue would be faster than handling this through an automated system. People like to say they get you through fast, but I personally have experienced long "absolute" wait times, even if it seems like the line is going quickly, to the point of I rarely like to go there unless I have time to kill. This almost never happens to the same extent in a McDonald's line, which is shorter, maybe slower moving at times, but lower total wait times.

CFA has found lots of small incremental improvements that speed up the drive thru process significantly.

MCD did the double drive thru ordering first, but my local CFA now has two pickup lines as well, with a heated covered roof. The window has been replaced with a wide open door and employees walk the orders to each car. Simple and it works great.

Chick fil an optimizes the process, not the tech, and it very much shows. Which is what any good business should be doing, IMO.

Mine has never asked for the name twice but they recently started slipping numbered cards under your wipers after placing your order.

I remember CFA posting some articles a few years back on their k8s setup they use for store and inventory management.

Can I get promoted to Manager if I get a degree in Hamburger-data-ology?

From what I can tell the career path is into Corporate hell.

https://www.uopeople.edu/blog/hamburger-education-inside-mcd...

If you want to be a franchisee, the easiest way (other than having $3-$10m lying around) is working for McDonalds, taking AOC at Hamburger U, and then joining their franchise program where they "lease" you everything for a larger take of the annual sales than if you pony up the franchise fee and buy a franchise location.

What's AOC in this context?

Advanced Operations Course

(Found by googling "AOC Hamburger University -cortez")

Recruitment but also retention. Some engineers want to publicly communicate their work at a recognizable company, or aspire to become the kind of company good enough to have a well-liked engineering blog. Providing that opportunity doesn’t cost much and means a lot.

From the company's perspective, the hoped for result is mostly recruiting oriented, a little bit is related to offering career advancement (public visibility of your work) to individuals that write or are featured in the blog.

That's all it is. These EDA transformation journey blog posts are de rigeur for any company looking to have its engineering culture perceived in a modern light, at least in the eyes of a junior-to-intermediate developer.

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