Are there other devs who think unit tests actually are a major boost to iteration speed ?

I'd like to think of unit testing as a standard. ......😉

Iteration speed of? A sprint?

It's sooner about maintaining a constant speed, i.e. slow and steady, while at the same time, and more importantly, producing quality tested code that is readable and maintainable. This is ultimately going to make you faster!

@GinjaNinja yes I meant speed of a sprint. Banging out code during start of a product is easy. But changing code is just so much better with unit tests around.

@xecute In the words of Uncle Bob...

The only way to go fast is to go well!

They're an investment. Having no unit tests is a clear sign of some technical debt that hasn't been paid down, and as we know, tech debt comes to bite you in the arse eventually.

we are about to launch huge platform. Not only unit test saved us, but API ones were there when we needed them most. I'd still refactor those functions if not the test.

Absolutely, for any team size, but especially large teams. I'm on a team with 100% coverage is the *minimum* (note that 100% is not the target, just the starting point) and we did a major refactor in about 1/10 of the time that other teams thought it would take. There is another team that is struggling to get through their normal sprints because they are constantly breaking functionality that wasn't properly tested. Eat your vegetables and write your tests.