Operators Ep 12: Thomas Dimson (ex-Instagram)

Thomas Dimson was the former Director of Engineering at
Instagram. Thomas joined as one of the first 50 employees and the
16th engineer there. During his time at Instagram he developed
prominent features such as the polling sticker in stories,
hyperlapse, emojineering, and authored the feed algorithm. He
left Instagram in February of this year and is currently working
on a new project. 


In this episode we talk about the origin and rationale of the
algorithmic feed, why he advocated for the Instagram engineering
team to not share Facebook’s office but rather have their own
space, and the story behind polling stickers. He also shares his
claim to fame feature on Kindle, why he considers himself a
generalist, and his passion for building things, which ultimately
led to his decision to move on from Instagram.


I hope you enjoy the show.


Full Transcript Available


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