Running a Start-up on Bazel – Prasanna Swaminathan, Ergatta
Bazel is typically described as a build system meant for large-scale systems. It’s also described as a build system meant for teams with dedicated help to Bazel. But…what if you have neither? What if you are a small-scale start-up? Start-ups, by their nature, rarely have a spare headcount to devote to a build systems engineer. Their codebases are also usually pretty small. Why on Earth would you use Bazel in that context? Ergatta *is* using Bazel in that context. Ergatta has 1 MM LOC. Ergatta does not have the headcount to devote an engineer to Bazel. How does it work? How does a start-up with a 10-person engineering team work with a system that notoriously requires so much maintenance? In this talk, I’ll talk about why we would ever entertain such a notion, what makes Bazel work for us, and how we remain productive in these times.
