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I'm always amazed how many employees some of these apps, that seem simple, have. Grindr has 273. And apparently Tinder has 809. How??? I imagine two devs co

I'm always amazed how many employees some of these apps, that seem simple, have. Grindr has 273. And apparently Tinder has 809. How??? I imagine two devs could maintain the app. I've certainly managed more complex apps myself. Perhaps the algorithm is infact incredible (I doubt it?) and requires a large team of data scientists, developers and sys admins. There is of course people to deal with spam protection and abuse. But then what? Is the rest all marketing and ads sales?

TRiG_Ireland 3y ago
algorithm? Who's closest and not blocked. That's the algorithm.
vinni2 3y ago
I imagine two devs could maintain the app. What about backend and database etc? it’s not that simple app
guessmyname 3y ago
> I imagine two devs could maintain the app. I've certainly managed more complex apps myself. Do you believe that only developers are employed at the company? Having 273 employees seems like a reasonable number to handle tasks such as development, marketing, and ensuring the overall success of a legitimate business. Consider roles like executives, lawyers, accountants, human resources personnel, payroll administrators, marketing and sales professionals, customer service, designers, web developers, database administrators, development operations experts, and cloud infrastructure specialists. Additionally, there would be managers overseeing various teams dedicated to different features, working to retain existing customers and attract new ones each quarter. If you find the idea of 273 individuals handling all these responsibilities unreasonable, I’m genuinely interested in hearing how you would envision the organizational structure for such a company.
- leetcrew 3y ago
  it seems like a lot to me too. I use to work at a company about that size with a far more complicated product (professional design software with thousands of dialogs, render pipeline, etc). of course, we did not have so many customers.
  - jonfw 3y ago
    Did you store user data? Did you operate in a bunch of different markets? If so, compliance can become quite difficult
sethhochberg 3y ago
In almost every one of these conversations, people always forget the back office: modern user-facing applications are just the tip of the iceberg for large backend systems that cover customer service/support tooling, regional variations of core features, financial and compliance reporting, analytics, advertising platforms, CMS features, internal tools to support all of the people working on these various other things, etc, etc. A lot goes into a business being able to offer a simple-looking app experience. And sure, most businesses have some bloat too once they get to a certain size. But there's a lot of legitimate need, too. The frontend is your product, but the backend is your _business_.
sushid 3y ago
I'm always amazed by people who think they know more about the need for human capital than the businesses that utilize said human capital. Your key (incorrect) assumption is that these apps are for some reason in maintenance mode. These are international apps on various platforms with new features and various business requirements. I can, off the top of my head, think of teams like security, advertising, analytics, marketing, devops, infra, CX, etc. etc. I'd love you see you try and run just their CX team by yourself and another person, much less the rest of the org.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  >I'm always amazed by people who think they know more about the need for human capital than the businesses that utilize said human capital. to be fair, it's been clear that companies overhired like crazy over the pandemic, simply because they could. They may know more, but their calculus isn't as simple as operating for the lowest cost for the biggest money. So many companies over the pandemic were trying to take advantadge and grow like crazy, so they essentially gambled. But sure, when the front facing user value is a slightly fancy chat app, it can be easy to underestimate the scope of the app, or its advertising.
tamimio 3y ago
>Grindr has 273. >And apparently Tinder has 809. What I find more interesting, is with that amount of employees, you barely hear any kind of leaks, not necessarily the technical type too, it feels like it’s a blackbox of employees unlike other apps say twitter etc., you never get to interact with a “tinder ex-employee” or such, kind of weird, especially when they are treated like that, I expect someone to go out and speaks up about some internal policies, or anonymously leaking some emails, how actually the algorithm works that obviously destroys dating scene so you can pay them more, and so on.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  800 isn't enough for the scale of leaks you're expect (since you're comparing to twitter). Especially if it's one of those rare companies that tries to retain employees. It also doesn't help that while 800 is a lot, there's probably less than a few dozen who would be managing those policies. I'm sure those employees are compensated (or threatened) more than enough to stay shut.
kryptozinc 3y ago
> I imagine two devs could maintain the app. I've certainly managed more complex apps myself. There's always a guy like you on threads like this. You are either incredibly naive or think way too much about yourself.
- Auracle 3y ago
  I mean, Twitter/X is still chugging along despite all of the cries that it was going to collapse. He might not be fully wrong.
mplewis 3y ago
Two developers? Like, backend and everything else, or…?

TRiG_Ireland 3y ago

algorithm? Who's closest and not blocked. That's the algorithm.

vinni2 3y ago

I imagine two devs could maintain the app. What about backend and database etc? it’s not that simple app

guessmyname 3y ago

> I imagine two devs could maintain the app. I've certainly managed more complex apps myself. Do you believe that only developers are employed at the company? Having 273 employees seems like a reasonable number to handle tasks such as development, marketing, and ensuring the overall success of a legitimate business. Consider roles like executives, lawyers, accountants, human resources personnel, payroll administrators, marketing and sales professionals, customer service, designers, web developers, database administrators, development operations experts, and cloud infrastructure specialists. Additionally, there would be managers overseeing various teams dedicated to different features, working to retain existing customers and attract new ones each quarter. If you find the idea of 273 individuals handling all these responsibilities unreasonable, I’m genuinely interested in hearing how you would envision the organizational structure for such a company.

leetcrew 3y ago
it seems like a lot to me too. I use to work at a company about that size with a far more complicated product (professional design software with thousands of dialogs, render pipeline, etc). of course, we did not have so many customers.
- jonfw 3y ago
  Did you store user data? Did you operate in a bunch of different markets? If so, compliance can become quite difficult

sethhochberg 3y ago

In almost every one of these conversations, people always forget the back office: modern user-facing applications are just the tip of the iceberg for large backend systems that cover customer service/support tooling, regional variations of core features, financial and compliance reporting, analytics, advertising platforms, CMS features, internal tools to support all of the people working on these various other things, etc, etc. A lot goes into a business being able to offer a simple-looking app experience. And sure, most businesses have some bloat too once they get to a certain size. But there's a lot of legitimate need, too. The frontend is your product, but the backend is your _business_.

sushid 3y ago

I'm always amazed by people who think they know more about the need for human capital than the businesses that utilize said human capital. Your key (incorrect) assumption is that these apps are for some reason in maintenance mode. These are international apps on various platforms with new features and various business requirements. I can, off the top of my head, think of teams like security, advertising, analytics, marketing, devops, infra, CX, etc. etc. I'd love you see you try and run just their CX team by yourself and another person, much less the rest of the org.

johnnyanmac 3y ago
>I'm always amazed by people who think they know more about the need for human capital than the businesses that utilize said human capital. to be fair, it's been clear that companies overhired like crazy over the pandemic, simply because they could. They may know more, but their calculus isn't as simple as operating for the lowest cost for the biggest money. So many companies over the pandemic were trying to take advantadge and grow like crazy, so they essentially gambled. But sure, when the front facing user value is a slightly fancy chat app, it can be easy to underestimate the scope of the app, or its advertising.

tamimio 3y ago

>Grindr has 273. >And apparently Tinder has 809. What I find more interesting, is with that amount of employees, you barely hear any kind of leaks, not necessarily the technical type too, it feels like it’s a blackbox of employees unlike other apps say twitter etc., you never get to interact with a “tinder ex-employee” or such, kind of weird, especially when they are treated like that, I expect someone to go out and speaks up about some internal policies, or anonymously leaking some emails, how actually the algorithm works that obviously destroys dating scene so you can pay them more, and so on.

johnnyanmac 3y ago
800 isn't enough for the scale of leaks you're expect (since you're comparing to twitter). Especially if it's one of those rare companies that tries to retain employees. It also doesn't help that while 800 is a lot, there's probably less than a few dozen who would be managing those policies. I'm sure those employees are compensated (or threatened) more than enough to stay shut.

kryptozinc 3y ago

> I imagine two devs could maintain the app. I've certainly managed more complex apps myself. There's always a guy like you on threads like this. You are either incredibly naive or think way too much about yourself.

Auracle 3y ago
I mean, Twitter/X is still chugging along despite all of the cries that it was going to collapse. He might not be fully wrong.

mplewis 3y ago

Two developers? Like, backend and everything else, or…?