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Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users

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Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users

#71

Post by leoedin »

humanrebar wrote: post #32
planetjones wrote: post #7

I don't quite understand the correlation. If the article was about how Whatsapp achieves scale and parallelism through functional languages, then fair enough. But I'm not sure it's fair to say they need 50 engineers, in part, because of the language choice ? Surely they need 50 engineers because their product is fairly simple and there's no need to have more engineers than features. Maybe the point it should have mad…

> Surely they need 50 engineers because their product is fairly simple and there's no need to have more engineers than features. Right. There's not even a way to adjust notification levels based on person or group. I ended up turning off notifications for the whole app, so it stopped serving the same use cases that text messages do. People still need to text or call me if they need an urgent answer.

On the Android app there is. Choose the "View Contact" or "View Group" menu option from the top right and then change that contact or group's notification settings.

Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users

#72

Post by felipeerias »

planetjones wrote: post #7

I don't quite understand the correlation. If the article was about how Whatsapp achieves scale and parallelism through functional languages, then fair enough. But I'm not sure it's fair to say they need 50 engineers, in part, because of the language choice ? Surely they need 50 engineers because their product is fairly simple and there's no need to have more engineers than features. Maybe the point it should have mad…

If you take a simple task and scale it by six or seven orders of magnitude, the result is anything but simple.

Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users

#73

Post by pdpi »

oskarth wrote: post #47
amelius wrote: post #17

> Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users Answer: because sending short messages from A to B is basically a solved problem. There is even a programming language (Erlang) that was made with this application in mind. The prototypical "Hello World" example for Erlang is a messaging application.

I'm sure you could do it in an afternoon, right? Just like anyone on HN can make a "basic CRUD app" like Facebook in a weekend. I really dislike the arrogant attitude behind these types of comments. Have you worked at WhatsApp? Do you have any idea what they spend their days doing, what their systems look like, what their requirements are like? WhatsApp have close to a billion users, 50 engineers and they manage to p…

This might be me being exceedingly charitable to the OP, but I see his point differently:

There's a ton of work involved in making a platform like WhatsApp a polished user experience. There's then a ton more work involved in making it _solid_. In choosing Erlang, they chose a platform that trivialises a large part (though not all) of the latter, allowing them to focus on the former.

Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users

#74

Post by wslh »

aet wrote: post #33
wslh wrote: post #28

I would love to see a list of these 50 engineers, their skills and how they are organized. It provides guidance for other teams (even if part of their software is written in Erlang!).

Type "Whatsapp" into LinkedIn and you will get some idea, but probably biased towards more junior people. I agree would be interesting to see.

Beyond the individual roles it would be nice to know about their organization.

Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users

#76

Post by ohitsdom »

jamespo wrote: post #5

I got my first ever spam on whatsapp the other day from someone who had never been a contact, and there seems to be no way whatsoever to prevent it. So maybe they should hire 1 more engineer to work on spam.

How long have you been using whatsapp? Because only one spam message sounds like it's not a huge problem...

Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users

#77

Post by interpol_p »

mdellabitta wrote: post #66
interpol_p wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of how we have been hiring engineers. We sit them down for a day with a fairly simple task (build a simple web or mobile app, about three screens with a basic data model) but we make sure to give them a language or framework they are unfamiliar with. They have Google, Stack Overflow, and other employees to use as a resource. It's a great way to get to know new hires while seeing how resourceful and in…

Does this interviewing methodology mean that you only hire devs that don't currently have a gig or have vacation days to blow on the possibility of getting a job with you?

We do have an initial hour meeting with candidates just to get to know them and propose the trial if they seem like a possibility.

Wouldn't most people take a day off to interview somewhere? I know I wouldn't be comfortable ducking out for a few hours to interview — it would feel tense and uncomfortable.

Facebook, and I'm sure many other places, do full-day interviews. It's certainly not unusual.

Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users

#78

Post by astazangasta »

oskarth wrote: post #47
amelius wrote: post #17

> Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users Answer: because sending short messages from A to B is basically a solved problem. There is even a programming language (Erlang) that was made with this application in mind. The prototypical "Hello World" example for Erlang is a messaging application.

I'm sure you could do it in an afternoon, right? Just like anyone on HN can make a "basic CRUD app" like Facebook in a weekend. I really dislike the arrogant attitude behind these types of comments. Have you worked at WhatsApp? Do you have any idea what they spend their days doing, what their systems look like, what their requirements are like? WhatsApp have close to a billion users, 50 engineers and they manage to p…

Essentially, yes? I mean, are you suggesting these engineers are doing magic? That they wrote some new and amazing code that anyone could not write? That these 50 people are the only ones who could do this and somehow ended up at WhatsApp? Or are they just leveraging powerful systems efficiently?

Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users

#79

Post by berdario »

ghshephard wrote: post #9
jamespo wrote: post #5

I got my first ever spam on whatsapp the other day from someone who had never been a contact, and there seems to be no way whatsoever to prevent it. So maybe they should hire 1 more engineer to work on spam.

What version of Whatsapp/Platform are you using - newer versions of Whatsapp have spam blocking features. http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/whatsapp-rolls-out-new-spam-blocker...

That only works with direct messages. Spammers have upped their ante, and they are now sending spam by adding you to group messages which (when I looked it up) don't allow you to report them as spammer (you can still block them, but that doesn't prevent a spam epidemy)

Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users

#80

Post by dv_says »

amorphid wrote: post #54
apexkid wrote: post #21

I wish there were some good online resources around Erlang. Most of the content is very theoretical and not explanatory. Its hard to find implementation of common algorithms like Sorting, graphs, link-list and other dataStructures in erlang.

I haven't taken the Erlang plunge yet, but if I did, I'd probably try starting with Elixir, a language written in Erlang. There is a growing amount of buzz, community, tooling, etc. A basic understanding of Elixir would probably make Erlang a lot easier to understand.

Another vote for Elixir. Well-documented with a growing community, and the code is very readable.
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