Buffer Engineers

Building real-time integrations with social media platforms feels like trying to drink from a waterfall🚰 I’ve spent over 10 years working with data ingestion pipelines and third-party integrations. It’s not the only thing I do, and I’m far from an expert, but it’s an area I keep coming back to. The one thing that still excites and humbles me at the same time, is real-time or near-real-time data ingestion. At Buffer we integrate with real-time event sources (streams and webhooks) wherever possible. Today, we process ~45M events daily and we keep expanding. To some, that number might feel small, to others it might sound huge, but they are our numbers, and they keep growing as we add more integrations and support more users. 📈 Engineering-wise, it feels like drinking from a waterfall. Messy, not always controlled, but the freshness is unmatched. Similarly in our product, the responsiveness and freshness of information just puts a big smile on my face, and I believe on our users as well. We are bringing more of these integrations soon, where applicable and makes sense. 👀 Looking at you, LinkedIn and Bluesky.

There are a few beliefs I've followed as I've built Buffer. One of them is that as I attain personal freedoms through the success of Buffer, I aim to extend those same freedoms to the team. Very early on, this was in the form of location independence. I wanted to travel the world and have new experiences as I built Buffer. I could have given myself this benefit without extending it to others, but that didn't feel right to me. So we became a fully remote company, all the way back in 2013. We've also always run Buffer with complete transparency for the team on how the company is doing, down to how much cash we have in the bank and our burn rate. I believe that if the team has all the information, we are always going to better equipped to weather challenges and take advantage of opportunities. Throughout the journey, I've also always encouraged and celebrated the team having side projects. The way I see it, a team with side projects is a win-win. Side projects can be a great vehicle for personal growth and experiences which can benefit Buffer too. Besides, Buffer started as a side project for me and I always have little projects I'm tinkering on, so it would feel at odds to disallow side projects. In more recent years, we've operated Buffer with a 4-day workweek. I'm proud to say that in the 5 years we've been working four days a week, we've seen Buffer through a turnaround from decline and back to growth, profitability and new all-time-high ARR working this schedule together as a team. I don't see the shorter workweek as a benefit and a way to work less on Buffer. Instead, I see 4-day workweeks as the way we can all work optimally on Buffer, as time away and true renewal enable us make impactful, regular and sustained contributions. I believe that by extending the same freedoms to the team that you sought for yourself, you can build deep trust and unlock extraordinary commitment. During the times we've fully embraced this approach, we've felt our culture be strongest and experienced our most sustained results.

I recently built a new homepage hero section on Buffer.com with this fun interactive animation. I'm writing a post to break down the build since there are lots of cool tricks I learned along the way. What do you want me to cover? What questions do you have?