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Perhaps this is a naive (or dumb) question, but what will all those new engineers do? Reddit is doing what it has always done why does just scaling up require s

by da5e 15y ago

Perhaps this is a naive (or dumb) question, but what will all those new engineers do? Reddit is doing what it has always done why does just scaling up require so many more engineers?

jemka 15y ago
There is a law of diminished returns at some point in scaling websites. A while ago Reddit hit a scale where a move to Amazon's services seemed like the right thing to do. At that time the argument was solid. Since then the site has outgrown Amazon's services at Reddit's price points. Spinning up new services has an extremely low ROI. The preverbial wheel of scalling solutions needs to be re-invented, yet again. Not all services are created equal so no one is truly re-inventing anything, just applying unique solutions to unique problems. That takes manpower. Heck just to move from Amazon to a dedicated will take a team larger than they had a month ago. That's right from the horses mouth. Don't have the energy to fish out the link, though.
- raldi 15y ago
  As a former reddit engineer, I confirm everything you say. Note: Please don't edit your comment to make me look foolish. :)
  - yuhong 15y ago
    I still remember the discussions. It inspired this Ask HN submitted by me, for example: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2358079 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2358079
zedpm 15y ago
In addition to adding new features (many of which are available as previews for Reddit Gold subscribers), the degree to which Reddit must scale means that they can't simply spin up a dozen new servers and call it a day. Due to issues they've encountered on Amazon's infrastructure (http://blog.reddit.com/2011/03/why-reddit-was-down-for-6-of-last-24.html http://blog.reddit.com/2011/03/why-reddit-was-down-for-6-of-...) they do indeed require engineering hours to design and implement more robust and scalable approaches to providing their service.
code_duck 15y ago
I'd be asking why some other companies in the 1B page views a month range often have up to 60 engineers on hand. Reddit has a very small staff for an operation this size.

by da5e 15y ago

Perhaps this is a naive (or dumb) question, but what will all those new engineers do? Reddit is doing what it has always done why does just scaling up require so many more engineers?

jemka 15y ago

There is a law of diminished returns at some point in scaling websites. A while ago Reddit hit a scale where a move to Amazon's services seemed like the right thing to do. At that time the argument was solid. Since then the site has outgrown Amazon's services at Reddit's price points. Spinning up new services has an extremely low ROI. The preverbial wheel of scalling solutions needs to be re-invented, yet again. Not all services are created equal so no one is truly re-inventing anything, just applying unique solutions to unique problems. That takes manpower. Heck just to move from Amazon to a dedicated will take a team larger than they had a month ago. That's right from the horses mouth. Don't have the energy to fish out the link, though.

raldi 15y ago
As a former reddit engineer, I confirm everything you say. Note: Please don't edit your comment to make me look foolish. :)
- yuhong 15y ago
  I still remember the discussions. It inspired this Ask HN submitted by me, for example: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2358079 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2358079

zedpm 15y ago

In addition to adding new features (many of which are available as previews for Reddit Gold subscribers), the degree to which Reddit must scale means that they can't simply spin up a dozen new servers and call it a day. Due to issues they've encountered on Amazon's infrastructure (http://blog.reddit.com/2011/03/why-reddit-was-down-for-6-of-last-24.html http://blog.reddit.com/2011/03/why-reddit-was-down-for-6-of-...) they do indeed require engineering hours to design and implement more robust and scalable approaches to providing their service.

code_duck 15y ago

I'd be asking why some other companies in the 1B page views a month range often have up to 60 engineers on hand. Reddit has a very small staff for an operation this size.