56: How Threads was built in 5 months

Threads went from idea to 100M users in just about five months. This would not have been possible without building on top of Meta's existing systems and infrastructure. Join Pascal as he speaks with Joy, Cameron and Richard, three engineers from the Threads team who worked on backend, iOS and Android, respectively to learn about the challenges they faced along the way.

Got feedback? Send it to us on Threads (https://threads.net/@metatechpod), Twitter (https://twitter.com/metatechpod), Instagram (https://instagram.com/metatechpod) and don’t forget to follow our host @passy (https://twitter.com/passy, https://mastodon.social/@passy, and https://threads.net/@passy_). Fancy working with us? Check out https://www.metacareers.com/.

Links

• Threads: https://threads.net

• Threads: The inside story of Meta’s newest social app - https://engineering.fb.com/2023/09/07/culture/threads-inside-story-metas-newest-social-app/

• Litho: https://fblitho.com/

Timestamps

• Intro 0:00

• Introductions 0:56

• Intro: Cameron 1:42

• Intro: Joy 2:06

• Intro: Richard 2:30

• Early Days at Threads 3:03

• Specialisations 6:52

• Why built on top of IG? 7:18

• iOS and Android approaches 10:17

• UI Frameworks 12:00

• Code sharing on server 15:36

• What broke? 20:04

• How has the team changed? 23:02

• Favourite moments 25:30

• Outro 29:45

• Outtakes 31:03