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>We grew quickly and expanded our workforce even faster, increasing by 5x since 2020 Am i reading this right? Once the pandemic hit headcount went 200 -> 1000

by shmatt 3y ago

>We grew quickly and expanded our workforce even faster, increasing by 5x since 2020 Am i reading this right? Once the pandemic hit headcount went 200 -> 1000 -> 830 What is different in the user experience since 2020? I can understand needing an army of SRE's but this feels extremely bloated for a company who was able to run their product on a 200 person crew

dotnet00 3y ago
Since 2020 they've screwed around with the UI several times and have added stuff like forums and threads.
wrenky 3y ago
I think the growth of Discord partially explains it- They needed a _lot_ more SRE/Scale engineers, which causes growth in HR/Management layers. They also added a bunch of monetization stuff (discord nitro) and attempted to get more "community" based features like custom emotes/badges/profiles per server/watch party stuff. The core experience is the same, I think they've done a great job ensuring that doesnt change! They have also done the usual software stuff, improving core outskirts like stability/performance/login methods/slash options. Its the same core product but better.
- ketzo 3y ago
  I'm sure their userbase grew in a big big way during the pandemic, but honestly, by the beginning of 2020 Discord was already a massive operation. How much more headcount could pure scaling explain? I think you're more on the money with the miscellaneous other projects. They were even trying to sell games through Discord at one point.
whatyesaid 3y ago
I guess they are building other products and trying to diversify, like a game store that flopped within Discord. To make the progress/maintain what they currently have, yeah, you wouldn't even need 200 people if they were halfway decent. Unlike Twitter or Twitch, they have to diversify, as I believe they are burning money on their core product. The benefits of Nitro is not much. But they aren't going to become profitable by paying engineers $400K on bad ideas and keeping the engineers on reserve duty, which they have probably been doing.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
okdood64 3y ago
> I can understand needing an army of SRE As an SRE I can assure you, you don't need an army of SREs for a singular product.
__turbobrew__ 3y ago
They hired 800 engineers to create the soundboard. That is basically the only notable feature in the last 4 years.
- reportgunner 3y ago
  They also completely ran the android app into the ground.
seoulmetro 3y ago
User experience? Lots of spam about new features. Senior Executives experience? They look bigger as a company.

by shmatt 3y ago

dotnet00 3y ago

Since 2020 they've screwed around with the UI several times and have added stuff like forums and threads.

wrenky 3y ago

I think the growth of Discord partially explains it- They needed a _lot_ more SRE/Scale engineers, which causes growth in HR/Management layers. They also added a bunch of monetization stuff (discord nitro) and attempted to get more "community" based features like custom emotes/badges/profiles per server/watch party stuff. The core experience is the same, I think they've done a great job ensuring that doesnt change! They have also done the usual software stuff, improving core outskirts like stability/performance/login methods/slash options. Its the same core product but better.

ketzo 3y ago
I'm sure their userbase grew in a big big way during the pandemic, but honestly, by the beginning of 2020 Discord was already a massive operation. How much more headcount could pure scaling explain? I think you're more on the money with the miscellaneous other projects. They were even trying to sell games through Discord at one point.

whatyesaid 3y ago

I guess they are building other products and trying to diversify, like a game store that flopped within Discord. To make the progress/maintain what they currently have, yeah, you wouldn't even need 200 people if they were halfway decent. Unlike Twitter or Twitch, they have to diversify, as I believe they are burning money on their core product. The benefits of Nitro is not much. But they aren't going to become profitable by paying engineers $400K on bad ideas and keeping the engineers on reserve duty, which they have probably been doing.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

okdood64 3y ago

> I can understand needing an army of SRE As an SRE I can assure you, you don't need an army of SREs for a singular product.

__turbobrew__ 3y ago

They hired 800 engineers to create the soundboard. That is basically the only notable feature in the last 4 years.

reportgunner 3y ago
They also completely ran the android app into the ground.

seoulmetro 3y ago

User experience? Lots of spam about new features. Senior Executives experience? They look bigger as a company.