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How many engineers work at Airbnb? If there were 18, that would mean they hired 2. That's not that crazy.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
patio11 11y ago
I'd ballpark it as "several hundred." (Edit to add: this was a guesstimate based on "having a sense for this sort of thing is a key job skill for me." I then went looking to firm up the guesstimate. Data points in favor: 400 people match a search for "Airbnb engineer" on LinkedIn. A recent post shows a photo of their data science team with ~30 people on it; on previous experience with software companies, I'd have difficulty thinking there aren't at least 5+ much larger teams.) More broadly, I think people consistently underestimate how much you can get done with a very small team at a startup and, simultaneously, underestimate how many engineers it is possible to throw at a single product.
- GarethX 11y ago
  348 according to http://www.quora.com/Airbnb-in-2015/How-many-front-end-engineers-are-in-Airbnb-and-whats-the-ratio-between-them-and-back-end-engineers http://www.quora.com/Airbnb-in-2015/How-many-front-end-engin..., assuming all 'nerds' are engineers, which usually isn't true of course, but http://nerds.airbnb.com http://nerds.airbnb.com makes me think maybe they are.
- tomjen3 11y ago
  What. My ballpark would have been five or less + maybe 200 support people to handle all the issues with having that many customers. It is a relatively simple website that allows you to search apartment listings - essentially a very pretty CRUD app. What are the rest doing?
  - Xyik 11y ago
    Hmm, lets see I would guess they at the very minimum have a: -Web team -Mobile team -Data team -Infrastructure team -Tools team So assuming at least 5 people per team thats already 25 people ... why is it so hard to understand that building anything at scale involves lots of man power?
    - balquhidder 11y ago
      Is AirBnB "at scale"? Why does it need to be?

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

I'd ballpark it as "several hundred." (Edit to add: this was a guesstimate based on "having a sense for this sort of thing is a key job skill for me." I then went looking to firm up the guesstimate. Data points in favor: 400 people match a search for "Airbnb engineer" on LinkedIn. A recent post shows a photo of their data science team with ~30 people on it; on previous experience with software companies, I'd have difficulty thinking there aren't at least 5+ much larger teams.) More broadly, I think people consistently underestimate how much you can get done with a very small team at a startup and, simultaneously, underestimate how many engineers it is possible to throw at a single product.

GarethX 11y ago
348 according to http://www.quora.com/Airbnb-in-2015/How-many-front-end-engineers-are-in-Airbnb-and-whats-the-ratio-between-them-and-back-end-engineers http://www.quora.com/Airbnb-in-2015/How-many-front-end-engin..., assuming all 'nerds' are engineers, which usually isn't true of course, but http://nerds.airbnb.com http://nerds.airbnb.com makes me think maybe they are.
tomjen3 11y ago
What. My ballpark would have been five or less + maybe 200 support people to handle all the issues with having that many customers. It is a relatively simple website that allows you to search apartment listings - essentially a very pretty CRUD app. What are the rest doing?
- Xyik 11y ago
  Hmm, lets see I would guess they at the very minimum have a: -Web team -Mobile team -Data team -Infrastructure team -Tools team So assuming at least 5 people per team thats already 25 people ... why is it so hard to understand that building anything at scale involves lots of man power?
  - balquhidder 11y ago
    Is AirBnB "at scale"? Why does it need to be?