alt Hacker NewsI don't doubt that they were a bit overstaffed, but it doesn't seem unreasonable when you consider that "Messenger" is an umbrella that includes video calling, payments, games, integrations with business chatbots, Uber/Lyft integrations etc, across web/iOS/Android/Quest, internationally. If you took every feature Messenger has and multiplied it by even ~3 engineers for each one you could fill a few floors pretty quickly.
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komali2 • today at 4:40 AM
And if it's anything like Whatsapp, they'd need to keep up support for otherwise unsupported platforms like ancient Android versions, cause .01% doesn't sound like a lot until you realize your install base is in the hundreds of millions.
messenger is an absurdly popular app that keeps users in the platform and also increases the intensity of their usage, ultimately leading to more eyeballs, ads and revenue. If you look at it that way, relatively small features, and by association, improvements to the effectiveness of those features by a couple of SWEs each, gets you tons of business impact.