6 ms·

These companies are not "tech" companies in my book any more than the Sears catalog was a "tech" innovation. They are normal business that happen to be enabled

by new299 10y ago

These companies are not "tech" companies in my book any more than the Sears catalog was a "tech" innovation. They are normal business that happen to be enabled by technology, but the technological challenges are not new or to be frank uncommonly challenging. Because we're I assume mostly coders, we think they are differentiated by tech, almost everything else (marketing, sales, customer service) is likely more important. Bad technology could certainly kill a platform, but excellent tech won't save it, and a mediocre implementation is good enough.

miguelrochefort 10y ago
Exactly. I would be surprised if Uber hired more than 20 developers (which I consider a lot already).
- Cyph0n 10y ago
  I would extremely impressed if Uber is maintained and developed by only 20 developers.
  - miguelrochefort 10y ago
    Care to explain why?
    - knesek 10y ago
      Just FYI I recently watched a tech talk from some conference where Uber guy claiming they have 2000 developers...
      - Cyph0n 10y ago
        What the hell that's insane...
      - georgealton 10y ago
        heres a youtube link for those interested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb-m2fasdDY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb-m2fasdDY
      - dagw 10y ago
        Does that include everybody working on autonomous driving and related 'side projects'?
    - lundbc 10y ago
      Take a look at Uber's career's page. Even broken down to USA Engineering on the Engineering team hires, there are dozens and dozens of open positions. It's safe to say Uber thinks it's a > 20 person job. https://www.uber.com/careers/list/?city=all&country=united-states-of-america&keywords=&subteam=engineering&team=engineering https://www.uber.com/careers/list/?city=all&country=united-s...
      - FilterSweep 10y ago
        I agree with you and parent that it is (and should) be a > 20 person job for its scale, but the career page is probably not the best example. Many of those positions are perpetually open or rotated periodically (see: "You're leaking trade secrets" by Michael Schrenk) while the actual position was given to someone internal or someone connected to someone else internal to the firm. Most of these pages are used for resume harvesting so that [if the firm has resources] an HR or technical recruiter can periodically evaluate the rest of the field. The firms holding out for the "rock star" often are more aggressive in recruiting them (whether at Job fairs or through LinkedIn headhunting).
    - Cyph0n 10y ago
      They have an Android app, an iOS app, driver management system, fleet management system, ride tracking system, ride scheduling, navigation system (not sure if this is 3rd party or in-house), payment processing, profile system for both riders and drivers, price calculation system, and probably a bunch of other stuff in the background. All this must work correctly and reliably in the 400+ cities they're operating in. To me at least, 20 developers is not enough to develop and maintain that many interconnected systems. I would say 100s at the very least.
      - miguelrochefort 10y ago
        20 people is more than enough to build and support these things...
        kornish 10y ago
        Are you serious? With many 9s of uptime, low latency requirements and hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue on the line? Uber employs over 2k developers right now.
      - ronald_raygun 10y ago
        Don't forget cars that drive themselves
    - ZanyProgrammer 10y ago
      I'm not sure just because you mentioned 400+ cities they need as many developers as cities they operate in.
      - yomly 10y ago
        Did you read the article? In it, the author discusses the engineering issues that arise from trying to deal tackling problems in different languages. Now, granted, Uber in this particular thread of discussion does not have to deal with tokenization issues of Japanese/Chinese character search strings but I think it is naive to not think that the nuances of individual communities of 400+ cities intra-country, let alone dealing with separate nations, will add significant engineering overhead... (even if the relationship is not linear)
Cyph0n 10y ago
If you think scaling a service like Uber is not challenging, you're vastly underestimating how large they are. Uber especially has requirements that make it tough to scale correctly. You need to track each Uber session in near real-time, right? That means you simply cannot afford to drop or interrupt those sessions. It's a completely different problem than scaling Instagram or WhatsApp.
- new299 10y ago
  Hmmm... nothing like near real-time. Challenging near real-time is sub-nanosecond. Uber real-time requirement of what < 30s? (for a viable product). No that doesn't seem like a challenging problem. It seems like a problem that would require almost no throught for a MVP, and then incremental challenges as the problem scales. It seems like a problem that is so comparatively easy compared to what computers are capable of that I wouldn't even class it as "difficult". But what's telling about your answer is that your thinking about this technical challenge, this feature as being of primary importance. Do you think if Uber was 10 times cheaper than a regular taxi real-time tracking would be as significant? Uber's funding which has enabled them to subsidize their expansion (and rides), advertising and promotion and possibly that they plugged in to a easily accessed communications channel (mobile apps). Were likely all more important than the quality of their implementation.
  - Cyph0n 10y ago
    Probably less than 30s between pings during a ride, but I haven't tested it tbh. I usually use the word real-time when talking about systems that operate in the ns time range, and near real-time when talking about software. Sorry for the confusion. What I was trying to emphasize is that Uber needs to keep track of these sessions and make sure they're not interrupted, or else they lose customers. Yes, I know building something that fits these requirements and works most of the time is trivial. But we're talking about a system that must basically work as close to always as possible. More importantly, it must do this at scale, maintaining and keeping track of perhaps millions of sessions at once. In a nutshell, an Uber MVP is probably not difficult, but the transition from MVP to real-world product is non-trivial in my opinion. I'm actually planning on setting up an Uber-like service for my home country, which is why I've been giving these issues some thought.
Yokohiii 10y ago
In addition the whole "we code for a better world" is just HR marketing to attract engineers. Sure there are companies that have innovative areas and oppurtunities, but many engineers are just code monkeys fullfilling daily duty without glory.

by new299 10y ago

miguelrochefort 10y ago

Exactly. I would be surprised if Uber hired more than 20 developers (which I consider a lot already).

Cyph0n 10y ago
I would extremely impressed if Uber is maintained and developed by only 20 developers.
- miguelrochefort 10y ago
  Care to explain why?
  - knesek 10y ago
    Just FYI I recently watched a tech talk from some conference where Uber guy claiming they have 2000 developers...
    - Cyph0n 10y ago
      What the hell that's insane...
    - georgealton 10y ago
      heres a youtube link for those interested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb-m2fasdDY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb-m2fasdDY
    - dagw 10y ago
      Does that include everybody working on autonomous driving and related 'side projects'?
  - lundbc 10y ago
    Take a look at Uber's career's page. Even broken down to USA Engineering on the Engineering team hires, there are dozens and dozens of open positions. It's safe to say Uber thinks it's a > 20 person job. https://www.uber.com/careers/list/?city=all&country=united-states-of-america&keywords=&subteam=engineering&team=engineering https://www.uber.com/careers/list/?city=all&country=united-s...
    - FilterSweep 10y ago
      I agree with you and parent that it is (and should) be a > 20 person job for its scale, but the career page is probably not the best example. Many of those positions are perpetually open or rotated periodically (see: "You're leaking trade secrets" by Michael Schrenk) while the actual position was given to someone internal or someone connected to someone else internal to the firm. Most of these pages are used for resume harvesting so that [if the firm has resources] an HR or technical recruiter can periodically evaluate the rest of the field. The firms holding out for the "rock star" often are more aggressive in recruiting them (whether at Job fairs or through LinkedIn headhunting).
  - Cyph0n 10y ago
    They have an Android app, an iOS app, driver management system, fleet management system, ride tracking system, ride scheduling, navigation system (not sure if this is 3rd party or in-house), payment processing, profile system for both riders and drivers, price calculation system, and probably a bunch of other stuff in the background. All this must work correctly and reliably in the 400+ cities they're operating in. To me at least, 20 developers is not enough to develop and maintain that many interconnected systems. I would say 100s at the very least.
    - miguelrochefort 10y ago
      20 people is more than enough to build and support these things...
      - kornish 10y ago
        Are you serious? With many 9s of uptime, low latency requirements and hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue on the line? Uber employs over 2k developers right now.
    - ronald_raygun 10y ago
      Don't forget cars that drive themselves
  - ZanyProgrammer 10y ago
    I'm not sure just because you mentioned 400+ cities they need as many developers as cities they operate in.
    - yomly 10y ago
      Did you read the article? In it, the author discusses the engineering issues that arise from trying to deal tackling problems in different languages. Now, granted, Uber in this particular thread of discussion does not have to deal with tokenization issues of Japanese/Chinese character search strings but I think it is naive to not think that the nuances of individual communities of 400+ cities intra-country, let alone dealing with separate nations, will add significant engineering overhead... (even if the relationship is not linear)

Cyph0n 10y ago

If you think scaling a service like Uber is not challenging, you're vastly underestimating how large they are. Uber especially has requirements that make it tough to scale correctly. You need to track each Uber session in near real-time, right? That means you simply cannot afford to drop or interrupt those sessions. It's a completely different problem than scaling Instagram or WhatsApp.

new299 10y ago
Hmmm... nothing like near real-time. Challenging near real-time is sub-nanosecond. Uber real-time requirement of what < 30s? (for a viable product). No that doesn't seem like a challenging problem. It seems like a problem that would require almost no throught for a MVP, and then incremental challenges as the problem scales. It seems like a problem that is so comparatively easy compared to what computers are capable of that I wouldn't even class it as "difficult". But what's telling about your answer is that your thinking about this technical challenge, this feature as being of primary importance. Do you think if Uber was 10 times cheaper than a regular taxi real-time tracking would be as significant? Uber's funding which has enabled them to subsidize their expansion (and rides), advertising and promotion and possibly that they plugged in to a easily accessed communications channel (mobile apps). Were likely all more important than the quality of their implementation.
- Cyph0n 10y ago
  Probably less than 30s between pings during a ride, but I haven't tested it tbh. I usually use the word real-time when talking about systems that operate in the ns time range, and near real-time when talking about software. Sorry for the confusion. What I was trying to emphasize is that Uber needs to keep track of these sessions and make sure they're not interrupted, or else they lose customers. Yes, I know building something that fits these requirements and works most of the time is trivial. But we're talking about a system that must basically work as close to always as possible. More importantly, it must do this at scale, maintaining and keeping track of perhaps millions of sessions at once. In a nutshell, an Uber MVP is probably not difficult, but the transition from MVP to real-world product is non-trivial in my opinion. I'm actually planning on setting up an Uber-like service for my home country, which is why I've been giving these issues some thought.

Yokohiii 10y ago

In addition the whole "we code for a better world" is just HR marketing to attract engineers. Sure there are companies that have innovative areas and oppurtunities, but many engineers are just code monkeys fullfilling daily duty without glory.