Working at LinkedInKyle Sherman

iOS Developer (SlideShare) Rutgers University '12

October 7, 2015

My Background

• B.S. Electrical & Computer Engineering

• Worked at Intel for a 6-month co-op and 2 years full time

• Been with LinkedIn (SlideShare) since December 2013

My Experiences @ LinkedIn• Worked on SlideShare's first mobile app on

Android

• Working on SlideShare's first iOS app

• Currently helping out on LinkedIn flagship iOS app

• Published LinkedIn Engineering Blog Post on Swift

https://engineering.linkedin.com/ios/our-swift-experience-slideshare

Values Throughout LinkedIn• Ideas come from everywhere; not top down*

• Act like an owner

• Be open, honest, and constructive

• Demand Excellence

• Relationships Matter

• Members First

Ideas Come From Everywhere

• Many of our features have come from internal hackdays or brainstorming sessions

• A major new feature of SlideShare, Clipping, came from a brainstorming discussion

• Product team was formed; they planned and implemented the feature

• Now there are millions of clips on SlideShare!

Act Like An Owner• Developers at any level are given sizable

features to implement

• They own the development of that feature

• They communicate with Product Managers and Designers

• The feature doesn’t ship until everyone agrees it’s ready

Intern Project

• iOS code

• Ruby on Rails API

• Tested

• Found & Solved Edge cases

Be Open, Honest, & Constructive

• Code reviews are very important

• Engineers are encouraged to stand up for what they believe in

• Feel free to talk to anyone about ideas or feedback

Demand Excellence

• Collectively decide if we feel the feature is ready

• If everyone does not agree or is convinced; it doesn’t ship

Relationships Matter

• Fun events with your team

• People play games together late on Friday night in the office

Members First

• Conduct many user studies on all products

• Review member feedback and implement changes

Culture of LinkedIn

• Humor

• Collaboration

• Results

• Transformation

• Integrity

http://www.slideshare.net/PatWadors/linked-in-culture-deck?from_action=save

Humor

Formal FridaySlideShare Style

Collaboration/Results

• LinkedIn has video conferencing in every room

• Collaborate across teams

• No one person makes the decision

• We ship products!

Transformation

• You are here to transform your career!

• We adopt the latest and greatest technologies like Swift!

• LinkedIn is not afraid to change its tools and technologies if developers aren’t satisfied

Preserving Culture

• LinkedIn has acquired many startups

• Culture has been preserved

• Both Small & Large teams

Working in a Small Team

• SlideShare mobile team was 4 developers, 1 engineering manager, 1 product manager, and 1 designer

• Currently 4 engineers on Android and 2 iOS

• No dedicated API developers

Pros vs Cons (Small Team)

• Can move fast

• Each member knows more about everything going on

• Developers own features / product end to end

• Can't do as much simultaneously

• Focus on fewer things

• Less differing opinions to help make product better

ConsPros

Working in a Large Team

• Currently working on the flagship iOS team (~50 developers)

• Profile Edit team

• Dedicated API Development team

• Coordination to ensure consistency within each app and across platforms

Pros vs Cons (Large Team)

• Can do more simultaneously

• Focus on more than one (few) things

• Greater output over a short period of time

• More overhead for coordination between members

• Difficult to keep track of everything

• Difficult to have a full picture

Pros Cons

Best of Both Worlds

• Flexibility to work in both environments

• Switching teams is very easy and encouraged

• Your happiness is most important

What We Do

Connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive

and successful

Our mission

Create economic opportunity for every member of the global

workforce

Our vision

THE ECONOMIC GRAPH

Connecting talent with opportunity at massive scale

Members Companies Jobs Skills Schools Updates

Cool Perks!

• Great tasting, healthy, free food

• Fully Equipped Music Room

• Free Exercise classes; Awesome Gym

• 50% match on 401K; No maximum!

• Unlimited Vacation Days!

InDay!

• 1 Day per month

• You can do anything you want

• LinkedIn sponsored volunteering events

• HackDay!

• Learn a new skill