Engineers now working for Elon Musk at Twitter are being urged to work hard and bring their ideas for the platform to him directly.
In a Sunday note sent over Slack, an engineering director at Twitter proposed a number of ways people working for the platform could contribute as the company goes through an immediate upheaval under Musk. Since officially acquiring Twitter late Thursday, Musk has left employees wondering when mass layoffs will come down and gone about ordering changes to the platform, including its verification process and the return of Vine, the short form video app Twitter shut down years ago.
For those engineers and other employees not on such "Elon critical projects," a director suggested they be "thinking about ideas for cool product that you wish you were building at Twitter."
"Can you get a demo quick? Can you work with 'maniacal' urgency on something you would love to see in the product?" the director asked. "If so, please go ahead and share a demo directly with Elon."
In a separate internal note sent Sunday, reported by Insider, teams were tasked with "literally working 24/7" to complete changes ordered by Musk to verification by this coming Friday.
Such a style and pace of working is new for Twitter, a person familiar with the company said. Any ideas have previously gone through discussions with individual teams, managers and in meetings before being brought anywhere close to launch.
Now, engineers can expect much more immediate responses and results, likely from Musk. The director said those who pitch ideas to Musk, who is labelled internally as CEO, "will get some feedback" and "may be asked to ship it asap." The worst case scenario in pitching Musk is being "asked to stop work and work on something else."
Overall, the director said those interested in continuing to work at Twitter under Musk should not "wait for an opportunity to be handed to you" and alluded to those actively working being more likely to keep their jobs.
"Engineers/XFN partners who can get stuff done are the most important people at the company," the director added.
Are you a Twitter employee or someone else with insight to share? Contact Kali Hays at khays@insider.com, on secure messaging app Signal at 949-280-0267, or through Twitter DM at @hayskali. Reach out using a non-work device.
Contact Katherine Long via phone or the encrypted messaging app Signal at +1-206-375-9280, or by email klong@bjinnox.com.
