>>Why didn't they hire 2-3 (more expensive) experts instead of 10 juniors? << For the same reason they don't hire 2-3 architects instead of one architect and 10 workers to build a small house. Actually hiring solely "experts" the productivity may be lower because they're used to doing only certain kinds of things.

Experts are developers, too. They code faster/have a better focus.

An architect usually can't build a house.

Yeah, but there are large software systems with a lot of boring, repetitive stuff that is being done.

In startups? Then they're doing it wrong. Even in enterprise-size businesses they're doing it wrong. If manual repetition of a task occurs it has to be automated or refactored if it costs significant developer time (=money): http://xkcd.com/1205/

Repetitions are often a result of changing requirements things that can't (normally) be automated. If you think that enterprises are doing it wrong and you know more than them, you could become rich by showing them the right way of doing things - on one condition: you have to prove what you're claiming. :)

It's a myth that large companies have a lot of repitition tasks. They know how to automate. No need to tell them what they already do.

As my postings are focussed on the German market, I rarely see real Lean Startups that. It's still very common to build one thing big and to hope that it succeeds. So actually you don't start from scratch more than 1 time except some low profile developers messed it up.

I see that too.