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I still find it hard to comprehend how a one of the tools of a taxi calling app has this much complexity and have thousands of engineers working on it . It sure

I still find it hard to comprehend how a one of the tools of a taxi calling app has this much complexity and have thousands of engineers working on it . It surely must solve a difficult technical problem but I suspect the business impact is minimal as these apps were able to become widely successful initially without this level of complexity

hu3 4y ago
https://www.uber.com/global/en/cities https://www.uber.com/global/en/cities Any kind of business operating at these many places, having to deal with local laws, tax and payment processing in each one of them would require a huge and constant engineering effort.
hansworst 4y ago
I guess it is just a taxi calling app, but I have to say that for me personally, Uber has become a very useful tool because I can just instantly get wherever I need to go whenever I travel to a new place I've never been before. I hardly ever use Uber in my home city, but when I travel I use it all the time. That kind of stuff used to involve a bunch of planning, now I just open an app and I immediately get a decent estimation of time needed and price to get to my destination, all over the world. I don't find it so surprising that there is a bunch of complexity involved there.
speedgoose 4y ago
> Our Go Monorepo is larger than Linux kernel, and worked on by a couple of thousand engineers. In short, it’s big. I was very surprised too. So much complexity must slow them down a lot.
latchkey 4y ago
Having worked briefly for Grab, I can comprehend it.
dangoor 4y ago
> I still find it hard to comprehend how a one of the tools of a taxi calling app has this much complexity and have thousands of engineers working on it You can really say this about almost anything once it's established. A startup can seemingly get really far with just a handful of people, but that startup is undoubtedly also dealing with only a handful of the use cases and edge cases. They also don't have legacy to maintain and upgrade. They also don't have all of the issues of scale. Couple that with the fact that as outsiders we likely only see a tiny fraction of what the system ultimately needs to deal with. I'd get this sort of feedback here whenever talking about Khan Academy's work, so I ended up blogging about it to give a sense of how much more there is than what people think about: https://www.kevindangoor.com/posts/why-khan-academy-has-so-much-code/ https://www.kevindangoor.com/posts/why-khan-academy-has-so-m...
vidar 4y ago
The user facing part of the technology behind such a company is just a fragment of the whole puzzle
whimsicalism 4y ago
have you worked at a large tech company before? there are so many opportunities for micro-optimization that, if they pay for themselves, are worth hiring for.
dagmx 4y ago
To be fair to them, Uber is more than just a ride hailing service. It's also a food buying marketplace with, a package, grocery and meal delivery service. There's also their autonomous research division. Plus even with just the ride hailing service, they have tons of things that require engineering like load balancing of their drivers to requests in an area, and predictions for pricing and route timing. There's also the whole messaging component to it. It's a lot more complex of a company than it appears on the surface.
- didip 4y ago
  Autonomous research division is gone, right?
jasode 4y ago
>I still find it hard to comprehend how a one of the tools of a taxi calling app has this much complexity and have thousands of engineers working on it . Fyi... have you already seen the famous Uber engineer comment on the complexity of the app? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25376346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25376346 As a case study, the simpler non-profit RideAustin app fails customers even after Uber/Lyft left Austin: https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/12/austin-is-fine-without-uber-and-lyft-until-it-isnt/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/12/austin-is-fine-without-ube... It takes a lot of money and engineer salaries to make high-demand apps that work. That's not to say Uber staffing isn't bloated; they may be. That doesn't change the fact that armchair observers may still drastically underestimate how many hundreds (or thousands) of programmers it requires to build something equivalent.
- Jensson 4y ago
  Bolt (Taxify) built a similar service with a few hundred people and has now taken a significant market share in Europe. At least the people I talk to recommend taking bolt over uber since it is the same service but cheaper. It has a map and you can see where you are live etc, and it schedules rides intelligently so you can get a ride with a car that is full but is about to drop off near you, just like uber. Not sure why Uber needs so many people in silicon valley when apparently you can build an equivalent service with a few hundred people in Estonia costing 1/10 per head.
- emmelaich 4y ago
  from that thread ... > It genuinely blows my mind anyone who has written software couldn't have guessed at all of this from the beginning. Classic. People cannot comprehend why it is complex and others cannot comprehend why it would not be complex!
  - ZephyrBlu 4y ago
    It's hard to fathom how people can think software like Uber is not complex. I have to assume they've never worked in a large software company before.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
didip 4y ago
This is like saying: Why Google need to hire so many engineers? It's just a single search field.

hu3 4y ago

https://www.uber.com/global/en/cities https://www.uber.com/global/en/cities Any kind of business operating at these many places, having to deal with local laws, tax and payment processing in each one of them would require a huge and constant engineering effort.

hansworst 4y ago

I guess it is just a taxi calling app, but I have to say that for me personally, Uber has become a very useful tool because I can just instantly get wherever I need to go whenever I travel to a new place I've never been before. I hardly ever use Uber in my home city, but when I travel I use it all the time. That kind of stuff used to involve a bunch of planning, now I just open an app and I immediately get a decent estimation of time needed and price to get to my destination, all over the world. I don't find it so surprising that there is a bunch of complexity involved there.

speedgoose 4y ago

> Our Go Monorepo is larger than Linux kernel, and worked on by a couple of thousand engineers. In short, it’s big. I was very surprised too. So much complexity must slow them down a lot.

latchkey 4y ago

Having worked briefly for Grab, I can comprehend it.

dangoor 4y ago

> I still find it hard to comprehend how a one of the tools of a taxi calling app has this much complexity and have thousands of engineers working on it You can really say this about almost anything once it's established. A startup can seemingly get really far with just a handful of people, but that startup is undoubtedly also dealing with only a handful of the use cases and edge cases. They also don't have legacy to maintain and upgrade. They also don't have all of the issues of scale. Couple that with the fact that as outsiders we likely only see a tiny fraction of what the system ultimately needs to deal with. I'd get this sort of feedback here whenever talking about Khan Academy's work, so I ended up blogging about it to give a sense of how much more there is than what people think about: https://www.kevindangoor.com/posts/why-khan-academy-has-so-much-code/ https://www.kevindangoor.com/posts/why-khan-academy-has-so-m...

vidar 4y ago

The user facing part of the technology behind such a company is just a fragment of the whole puzzle

whimsicalism 4y ago

have you worked at a large tech company before? there are so many opportunities for micro-optimization that, if they pay for themselves, are worth hiring for.

dagmx 4y ago

To be fair to them, Uber is more than just a ride hailing service. It's also a food buying marketplace with, a package, grocery and meal delivery service. There's also their autonomous research division. Plus even with just the ride hailing service, they have tons of things that require engineering like load balancing of their drivers to requests in an area, and predictions for pricing and route timing. There's also the whole messaging component to it. It's a lot more complex of a company than it appears on the surface.

didip 4y ago
Autonomous research division is gone, right?

jasode 4y ago

>I still find it hard to comprehend how a one of the tools of a taxi calling app has this much complexity and have thousands of engineers working on it . Fyi... have you already seen the famous Uber engineer comment on the complexity of the app? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25376346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25376346 As a case study, the simpler non-profit RideAustin app fails customers even after Uber/Lyft left Austin: https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/12/austin-is-fine-without-uber-and-lyft-until-it-isnt/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/12/austin-is-fine-without-ube... It takes a lot of money and engineer salaries to make high-demand apps that work. That's not to say Uber staffing isn't bloated; they may be. That doesn't change the fact that armchair observers may still drastically underestimate how many hundreds (or thousands) of programmers it requires to build something equivalent.

Jensson 4y ago
Bolt (Taxify) built a similar service with a few hundred people and has now taken a significant market share in Europe. At least the people I talk to recommend taking bolt over uber since it is the same service but cheaper. It has a map and you can see where you are live etc, and it schedules rides intelligently so you can get a ride with a car that is full but is about to drop off near you, just like uber. Not sure why Uber needs so many people in silicon valley when apparently you can build an equivalent service with a few hundred people in Estonia costing 1/10 per head.
emmelaich 4y ago
from that thread ... > It genuinely blows my mind anyone who has written software couldn't have guessed at all of this from the beginning. Classic. People cannot comprehend why it is complex and others cannot comprehend why it would not be complex!
- ZephyrBlu 4y ago
  It's hard to fathom how people can think software like Uber is not complex. I have to assume they've never worked in a large software company before.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

didip 4y ago

This is like saying: Why Google need to hire so many engineers? It's just a single search field.