this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2023
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When they said Reddit has 2000 employees I was shocked. what could they possibly do onto a website that is basically run by users (and sysadmins) and that is basically feature-wise mature? I really can’t figure out 2000 people working every day on Reddit… on what? just for a quick comparison, the whole IAmA was run by a single person (Victoria), so… what are they doing?

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[–] ljdawson 443 points 1 year ago (20 children)

I did all of the development for Sync myself. It blows my mind the mobile team is around ~200 people and ~70 on Android.

[–] ConditionOverload 114 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And your app is still 100x better than theirs even with all their resources. To think the CEO gets pissed off that users prefer yours over theirs even though they have no reason to make an app that bad.

[–] Smokeless7048 13 points 1 year ago

But he doesn't have to add things like NFT and Avatar support... Which is promptly forgotten when the next big thing comes along.

[–] MushuChupacabra 54 points 1 year ago

Sync will be an automatic buy for me once you release it, based on how good it is/was on reddit.

The bonus for me is knowing that spez can't actually stop you from getting paid, despite his asshat antics.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Honestly I would say that that's probably the one thing that small teams have that large teams cannot have is autonomy.

I was working on a web app for a small team inside of a large corporation. It was me and two other people and every single time we wanted to make a change we had to get approval from legal we had to get a sign off from a VP and this was for something entirely internal that only 35 people would ever use.

I imagine when you are dealing with an app that is intended to be used by millions you're going to have the exact same issues but then 200 people all attempting to do minor improvements getting over voted and outvoted and good shit destroyed and relegated to the dustbin because legal can imagine that there might be some inconceivable problem with it 5 years in the future, or somebody in marketing might say that it interrupts their work flow even though it would be a massive improvement to the app.

This corporate overhead is one of the biggest issues that corporations face when dealing with a mobile active environment. They can't quickly push improvements and changes it's got to go through the process because otherwise nobody will document anything and they'll reach the point where they can't even read their own app.

[–] ArtVandelay 12 points 1 year ago

This guy corporates

[–] akaifox 2 points 1 year ago

This all sounds right. Currently at some large company, it sucks so much compared to working at smaller projects and startups

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Have you ever worked in a corporate environment?

It's basically friction losses with occasional sparks of actual productivity.

BTW: I've been using sync for years. I hope you can find a way to salvage some of your work.

[–] ljdawson 62 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I have and there's a reason I work on solo projects now...

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If I may ask so frankly: do/did you live completely off Sync or is that just a side project to you?

[–] ljdawson 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It was my main job for the last few years

[–] drekly 1 points 1 year ago

Say I'd been learning js, jsnode, python, CSS, HTML for years without aim other than messing around.

And I wanted to make sync.

Where should I be directing my learning?

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Im sorry what. 200 people for one app? I work for a multinational and our entire dev team for mobile is 35 people. And thats because we absorbed a few companies that have their own apps.

[–] hawkshaw 21 points 1 year ago

200 people for one shitty app.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago

Happy to see you here, ljdawson. Long live Sync!

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

Are they all writing code or just figuring out ways to inject ads and paid content into every orifice?

Anyway your app defined my reddit experience and I'm looking forward to your next one.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

I love your app man. I'll be buying your Lemmy app on day 1, even though I mainly use kbin to access the fediverse.

[–] hailsatan 16 points 1 year ago

Thank you for all your hard work! I look forward to buying the next Sync on release day.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I’m an iOS user so I only know of Sync by reputation, but my understanding is that it’s up there with Apollo as the definitive way to experience Reddit on its platform. The fact that Reddit’s 2000 employees couldn’t remotely approximate the superior experiences of Sync and Apollo, both developed by one guy, is frankly bewildering. I’ve worked in big tech too as an engineer so on one level I get it, but we’re not taking about rocket science here. The sheer manpower and budgets involved should have meant that the official clients would be light years ahead… and yet 😁

[–] Aeoneir 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Apollo is how you use Reddit on iOS, sync is how you use it on Android. It's the best of the best

[–] Robnez 5 points 1 year ago

I used sync pro for years. Only when forced I'd use their mobile website, and I'd I used desktop I had res installed. I couldn't stand their interfaces.

[–] Zuberi 3 points 1 year ago

Sync is a wonderful app. Really gives Apollo a run for their money ;)

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

It's wild, and sync was an awesome piece of software that I've been using over a decade, and I never had a problem with it, that's not often I can say about something. The reddit app has always been pure garbage.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Wow that really puts things into perspective, like wtf are they actually doing with that many employees?

Reddit to me IS Sync. It's the only way I could use the site. Without Sync reddit is dead to me.

70 android developers on an objectively worse app. Wtf? I'm so confused

Anyways thanks for Sync, masterclass in app design

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've seen similar things. At my last company I helped start a team of 5 people to implement an identity solution, We got it done in about 3 months. Due to shitty management they pushed out the competent devs and back filled with cheaper replacements, either fresh from university or contractors. Fast forward a few years and the over team is now a group of teams with about +/- 40 people and it takes 4 months just to get a plan together which is then obsolete when they want to start due to more shitty management.

Thank god I am no longer there.

[–] potterman28wxcv 4 points 1 year ago

Some people want to only recruit people that are less skilled by them so that they can remain in their position of power.

If you have a company with a few like that and several layers of recruitment I guess you can have a bunch of incompetent people spending their time in pointless meetings and not getting much done

[–] ChickenLadyLovesLife 9 points 1 year ago

70 android developers on an objectively worse app. Wtf? I’m so confused

I've been a developer for more than two decades. There is absolutely a negative correlation between the size of the development team and the quality of the application, with the optimum development team size being one.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can't wait for Sync for Lemmy. I will buy it on Day 1. Thank you for working on this!

[–] rath 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I've never used any apps (I avoid mobile apps at all cost) and Lemmy seems to work perfectly well on the web, both on desktop and on mobile. Can you point out what makes you want to use an app, and even pay for it, for Lemmy (or Reddit and similar websites)?

[–] shapis 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wondering. Given a team of 50 people. Do you think your app would have been better or worse ?

[–] ljdawson 9 points 1 year ago

Probably worse. It's the old software engineering Moto, nine women can't have a baby in one month

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

1 core developer and 199 other people trying to figure out how they can extract more money from users

[–] kiwifoxtrot 6 points 1 year ago

Thanks for Sync and all the hard work you put into it. It was the only way I interacted with Reddit. I can't wait to see what you come up with for Lemmy.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

That's an absurd big team for one mobile app, I could imagine they just failed to scale.

"SAFe is the best, we are so productive!"

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

@ljdawson @Matte and spez was accusing Apollo of being inefficient...

[–] Zuberi 1 points 1 year ago

They're dumb lol