6 ms·

Was linkedin really known for their engineering? Honest question I don't recall ever hearing anything good or bad.

by 65827 10y ago

SEJeff 10y ago
Yes, for starters they wrote things like Kafka and Samza there @ LinkedIn. I consider this post required reading for anyone wanting to build serious business distributed data pipelines, and guess where it came from? :) https://engineering.linkedin.com/distributed-systems/log-what-every-software-engineer-should-know-about-real-time-datas-unifying https://engineering.linkedin.com/distributed-systems/log-wha...
- eternalban 10y ago
  Microsoft's technology portfolio & research /far outstrips/ anything LinkedIn did or would encounter. I'd guess that this appointment is Cloud/Azure related.
  - SEJeff 10y ago
    Sure, and it is also likely 100x the size. That wasn't the original question, the question was what has LinkedIn done engineering wise. I'd say Kafka was a pretty smashing success having met all of Neha, Jun, and Jay Kreps and talked Kafka with them.
- clumsysmurf 10y ago
  Thanks for the link. I noticed their idea of "unified log" in a diagram about 45% of the way down. Does anyone know if this is the same thing talked about in the forthcoming Manning book "Unified Log Processing"? https://www.manning.com/books/unified-log-processing https://www.manning.com/books/unified-log-processing
  - alexatkeplar 10y ago
    Hey clumysmurf - author of the book here; yes indeed, the book is heavily influenced by Jay Kreps' LinkedIn paper.
- catwell 10y ago
  Voldemort was pretty influential too, even though it has been eclipsed by Cassandra.
aji 10y ago
Kafka, Samza, Databus, etc. LinkedIn is pretty capable when it comes to engineering. From what I've seen, most people's beef with LI tends to be product-related
jdoliner 10y ago
A number of notable opensource projects in the big data space were started at LinkedIn. Kafka is probably the most prominent example but there are others too. So I'd say they're fairly known for their engineering. You definitely don't get good projects like that coming out of a company without really good engineers making them.
glibgil 10y ago
Yes, they kind of overdid it in fact. They created Kafka, for example
Xyik 10y ago
pretty much every big company in silicon valley is known for their engineering talent, since top talent just moves around from company to company (e.g: lots of ex-googlers, ex-facebook, etc).
mendicantB 10y ago
World class engineers (especially data eng) who built some amazing open source things, but internally was a mess. The reason LinkedIn is a terrible product is because it was mired internally by chronically poor engineering leadership and product politics. Nothing ever got shipped. This new rollout is nice but 5 years too late. I'm really hoping the MSFT buy will change things, as I really believe in the product and there are some great engineers there.
fergie 10y ago
The only nugget that sticks in my mind was the massive password hack a few years ago. I wonder if Linkedin has a lot of MS tech in their stack? If so, and MS wants to push further into consumer facing services in the cloud, I can see why this appointment might make sense.

Was linkedin really known for their engineering? Honest question I don't recall ever hearing anything good or bad.

by 65827 10y ago

Was linkedin really known for their engineering? Honest question I don't recall ever hearing anything good or bad.

Yes, for starters they wrote things like Kafka and Samza there @ LinkedIn. I consider this post required reading for anyone wanting to build serious business distributed data pipelines, and guess where it came from? :) https://engineering.linkedin.com/distributed-systems/log-what-every-software-engineer-should-know-about-real-time-datas-unifying https://engineering.linkedin.com/distributed-systems/log-wha...

eternalban 10y ago
Microsoft's technology portfolio & research /far outstrips/ anything LinkedIn did or would encounter. I'd guess that this appointment is Cloud/Azure related.
- SEJeff 10y ago
  Sure, and it is also likely 100x the size. That wasn't the original question, the question was what has LinkedIn done engineering wise. I'd say Kafka was a pretty smashing success having met all of Neha, Jun, and Jay Kreps and talked Kafka with them.
clumsysmurf 10y ago
Thanks for the link. I noticed their idea of "unified log" in a diagram about 45% of the way down. Does anyone know if this is the same thing talked about in the forthcoming Manning book "Unified Log Processing"? https://www.manning.com/books/unified-log-processing https://www.manning.com/books/unified-log-processing
- alexatkeplar 10y ago
  Hey clumysmurf - author of the book here; yes indeed, the book is heavily influenced by Jay Kreps' LinkedIn paper.
catwell 10y ago
Voldemort was pretty influential too, even though it has been eclipsed by Cassandra.

aji 10y ago

Kafka, Samza, Databus, etc. LinkedIn is pretty capable when it comes to engineering. From what I've seen, most people's beef with LI tends to be product-related

jdoliner 10y ago

A number of notable opensource projects in the big data space were started at LinkedIn. Kafka is probably the most prominent example but there are others too. So I'd say they're fairly known for their engineering. You definitely don't get good projects like that coming out of a company without really good engineers making them.

glibgil 10y ago

Yes, they kind of overdid it in fact. They created Kafka, for example

Xyik 10y ago

pretty much every big company in silicon valley is known for their engineering talent, since top talent just moves around from company to company (e.g: lots of ex-googlers, ex-facebook, etc).

mendicantB 10y ago

World class engineers (especially data eng) who built some amazing open source things, but internally was a mess. The reason LinkedIn is a terrible product is because it was mired internally by chronically poor engineering leadership and product politics. Nothing ever got shipped. This new rollout is nice but 5 years too late. I'm really hoping the MSFT buy will change things, as I really believe in the product and there are some great engineers there.

fergie 10y ago

The only nugget that sticks in my mind was the massive password hack a few years ago. I wonder if Linkedin has a lot of MS tech in their stack? If so, and MS wants to push further into consumer facing services in the cloud, I can see why this appointment might make sense.