Building Reddit

Reddit’s infrastructure hasn’t always been as reliable as it is today. And Principal Software Engineer, Jason Harvey, is one of the main people responsible for the progress and improvements that took the site from 8 hours of downtime a week to the current 99% uptime. He started at the company in 2011 and has been in the middle of most of the changes to the Reddit infrastructure since then. In this episode, Jason shares how those improvements were implemented, what he does at his job every day, and how Alaskans like to meme. Check out all the open positions at Reddit on our careers site: https://www.redditinc.com/careers

5 Sep 20231h 5min

This is part 2 of a 2-part series on Emerging Talent at Reddit. Employees are the lifeblood of any company. And it’s important that the pipeline of new people joining is kept fresh and vibrant as the company matures. At Reddit, Emerging Talent is one of the main teams that ensures we recruit the best of the best from Universities. In this episode, you’ll hear directly from interns and new grads currently at Reddit. They’ll share how they joined the program, what they’re working on, and the best snacks at the Reddit Offices.  Find out about all the Reddit Intern and New Grad opportunities at Ripplematch: https://app.ripplematch.com/company/reddit/ Check out all the open positions at Reddit on our careers site: https://www.redditinc.com/careers

27 Jul 20231h 27min

This is part 1 of a 2-part series on Emerging Talent at Reddit. Employees are the lifeblood of any company. And it’s important that the pipeline of new people joining is kept fresh and vibrant as the company matures. At Reddit, Emerging Talent is one of the main teams that ensures we recruit the best of the best from Universities. In this episode, you’ll hear from Deitrick Franklin, the manager of the Emerging Talent team, about how the program was developed, what interns and new grads can expect, and about his personal journey from engineering to recruiting. Find out about all the Reddit Intern and New Grad opportunities at Ripplematch: https://app.ripplematch.com/company/reddit/ Check out all the open positions at Reddit on our careers site: https://www.redditinc.com/careers

27 Jul 202334min

Experimentation might not be the first thing you think about in software development, but it’s been absolutely essential to the creation of high-performance software in the modern era. At Reddit, we use our experimentation platform for fine-tuning software settings, trying out new ideas in the product, and releasing new features. In this episode you’ll hear from Reddit Principal Engineer Matt Knox, who has been driving the vision behind experimentation at Reddit for over six years.  Check out all the open positions at Reddit on our careers site: https://www.redditinc.com/careers Join the conversation at: https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditEng

4 Jul 202350min

Information Security is one of the most important things to most software companies. Their product is literally the ones and zeroes that create digital dreams. Ensuring that the code and data associated with that software is protected is of the utmost importance. In February of this year Reddit dealt with a security incident where attackers gained access to some of our systems. In this episode, I wanted to understand how the incident unfolded, how we recovered, and how Reddit is even more secure today. Check out all the open positions at Reddit on our careers site: https://www.redditinc.com/careers Join the conversation at: https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditEng

6 Jun 202320min

There’s a lot that goes into how brands partner with Reddit for advertising. The combination of technology and relationships bring about ad campaigns for shows such as Rings of Power and avatar collaborations like the one with Stranger Things. In today’s episode, you’ll hear from Sarah Miner. She’s the head of media & entertainment and her job is to build partnerships with brands so that Reddit is the best place for community on the web. Check out all the open positions at Reddit on our careers site: https://www.redditinc.com/careers Join the conversation at: https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditEng

2 Mai 202331min

In July of 2022, Reddit launched something a little different. They supercharged the Avatar Builder, connected it to a decentralized blockchain network, and rallied creators from around Reddit to design Collectible Avatars.  Reddit users could purchase or claim a Collectible Avatar, each one unique and backed by the blockchain. And then use it as their avatar on the site. Or, they could take pieces from the avatar and mix and match with pieces of other avatars, creating something even more original. The first creator-made collection sold out quickly, and Reddit continued to drop new collections for holidays like Halloween and events like Super Bowl 57. As of this podcast recording, over 7 million reddit users own at least one collectible avatar and creators selling collectible avatars on Reddit have earned over 1 million dollars. It’s an understatement to say the program has been a success.  In this episode, you’ll hear from some of the people behind the creation of Collectible Avatars. They explain how Collectible Avatars grew from Reddit’s existing Avatar platform, how they scaled to support millions of avatars, and how Reddit worked with both individual artists and the NFL to produce each avatar.  Check out all the open positions at Reddit on our careers site: https://www.redditinc.com/careers Join the conversation at: https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditEng

4 Apr 20231h 3min

Many Reddit employees have been with the company for a long time, but few as long as Reddit’s Chief Technology Officer, Chris Slowe. Chris joined Reddit in 2005 as our founding engineer. And though he departed the company in 2010, he returned as CTO in 2017. Since then, he’s been behind some of Reddit’s biggest transformations and growth spurts, both in site traffic and in the number of employees at the company. In this episode, you’ll hear Chris share some old Reddit stories, what he’s excited about at the company today, the impact of generative AI, and what sci-fi books he and his son are reading. Check out all the open positions at Reddit on our careers site: https://www.redditinc.com/careers Join the conversation at: https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditEng

8 Mar 202335min