Real Q. To me Netflix is just new content that comes from showmakers and filmmakers on the same platform that’s been around for years now. What do the SWEs there do year after year?
We have had some interesting and challenging problems to solve over the years and did a pretty neat job of it. With that done, we are pretty much reduced to operating things now. As we are left with no real engineering challenges anymore, the past few years has been mostly rehash things around back and forth - think break an existing service into multiple pieces, spend time on making it work then go right back and merge them together, rinse and repeat.
what happened to the original engineers
Same as anywhere else. Some left, some were fired and the rest sticking around for as long as possible (the sweet paycheck and the possibility of a hefty severance check helps!)
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/74/78/ae/7478ae00aa4eb6f454f15f8f8072a508.gif
Get paid
Collect my paycheck and live a life
Check out the tech blog. There is still innovation that happens, even if it's not directly on the streaming side.
Streaming, playback, personalization, content optimization, payment optimization, revenue forcasting, security, infrastructure.....
I open up Amazon prime, and I am turned off by the long buffering before an episode plays. Your experience has much to do with these little optimizations
Make streaming tech better meaning faster and faster and reduce their AWS bills by doing more with less. I believe Netflix isn’t a great place to be a SWE. You don’t solve problems at scale you just defer to someone else.