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How Pandora Nabbed More Than 70M Monthly Users with Just 40 Engineers

47 points by nehalm 13y ago

dilap 13y ago
It's hard to compare across different types of products, but IIRC, Instagram had only 3 engineers well into the millions of users (which I always thought was pretty impressive).
- jasonlotito 13y ago
  Not just different products, but they were pretty much on one device, iOS. Compare that to what Pandora is offered on these days.
birken 13y ago
40 engineers is a "skeleton crew"? 40 engineers? There are tons of websites/products out there doing a lot more with a lot less. And I love pandora, but this product management technique isn't exactly revolutionary. It is just a pretty standard top down system, albeit only planning one quarter at a time. This isn't pushing the boundaries like Valve or Yammer.
- Aloisius 13y ago
  The number of users isn't actually what makes it impressive. At Napster, we had 80 million users at a time where we had 1 backend engineer, 3 web developers, 3 windows developers and 3 mac developers. But 40 engineers to build apps for web, iOS, android, blackberry, windows phone, a thousand consumer devices, 100 types of cars, etc. is impressive assuming they roll out new features regularly. Even if some of it was done third-party, just the managing new integrations, ensuring feature releases are backwards compatible and testing new releases is still a feat. I agree the project management style isn't anything special though. Plenty of people use something like scrum with dollar values attached to features.
- badusername 13y ago
  Care to explain more about the Valve or Yammer references? (Genuinely curious).
  - owyn 13y ago
    Don't know about Yammer, but Valve has a very flat structure where engineers work directly on projects that they are interested in (and presumably that they think will bring in revenue). Quote from their (definitely must-read) employee handbook: "We’ve heard that other companies have people allocate a percentage of their time to self-directed projects. At Valve, that percentage is 100." http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.p...
doctorfoo 13y ago
So, I'm doing 7 engineers worth of work. It feels about accurate.
philod 13y ago
Were the ideas for new features and improvements all internally generated? Did they not have some method for actual users to suggest and vote on features?
nej 13y ago
Where do you get developers for $5 per month :P
CompleteMoron2 13y ago
Their android app leaves a lot to be desired - looks like a geocities webring. I love pandora though - i'd pay for Pandora One if it would work with my linux XBMC box.
matt__rose 13y ago
Interestingly, I worked there when there were 4 engineers. They had most of the product worked out back then. The Pandora website the last time I checked is not terribly functionally different from the internal Savage Beast website from 2001. Pick a song, and it generates a playlist based on that song. The barriers were legal and monetary, more than technical.

47 points by nehalm 13y ago

dilap 13y ago

It's hard to compare across different types of products, but IIRC, Instagram had only 3 engineers well into the millions of users (which I always thought was pretty impressive).

jasonlotito 13y ago
Not just different products, but they were pretty much on one device, iOS. Compare that to what Pandora is offered on these days.

birken 13y ago

40 engineers is a "skeleton crew"? 40 engineers? There are tons of websites/products out there doing a lot more with a lot less. And I love pandora, but this product management technique isn't exactly revolutionary. It is just a pretty standard top down system, albeit only planning one quarter at a time. This isn't pushing the boundaries like Valve or Yammer.

Aloisius 13y ago
The number of users isn't actually what makes it impressive. At Napster, we had 80 million users at a time where we had 1 backend engineer, 3 web developers, 3 windows developers and 3 mac developers. But 40 engineers to build apps for web, iOS, android, blackberry, windows phone, a thousand consumer devices, 100 types of cars, etc. is impressive assuming they roll out new features regularly. Even if some of it was done third-party, just the managing new integrations, ensuring feature releases are backwards compatible and testing new releases is still a feat. I agree the project management style isn't anything special though. Plenty of people use something like scrum with dollar values attached to features.
badusername 13y ago
Care to explain more about the Valve or Yammer references? (Genuinely curious).
- owyn 13y ago
  Don't know about Yammer, but Valve has a very flat structure where engineers work directly on projects that they are interested in (and presumably that they think will bring in revenue). Quote from their (definitely must-read) employee handbook: "We’ve heard that other companies have people allocate a percentage of their time to self-directed projects. At Valve, that percentage is 100." http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.p...

doctorfoo 13y ago

So, I'm doing 7 engineers worth of work. It feels about accurate.

philod 13y ago

Were the ideas for new features and improvements all internally generated? Did they not have some method for actual users to suggest and vote on features?

nej 13y ago

Where do you get developers for $5 per month :P

CompleteMoron2 13y ago

Their android app leaves a lot to be desired - looks like a geocities webring. I love pandora though - i'd pay for Pandora One if it would work with my linux XBMC box.

matt__rose 13y ago

Interestingly, I worked there when there were 4 engineers. They had most of the product worked out back then. The Pandora website the last time I checked is not terribly functionally different from the internal Savage Beast website from 2001. Pick a song, and it generates a playlist based on that song. The barriers were legal and monetary, more than technical.