71: Translating Java To Kotlin At Scale Meta Tech podcast

32:22

Pyrefly is a faster, open-source Python type checker written in Rust, succeeding Pyre. But what prompted the rewrite and what besides the language choice ended up making it faster? Host Pascal talks to Maggie, Rebecca and returning guest Neil about the unexpected complexities of building an incremental type checker that scales to mono repositories in episode 75. Got feedback? Send it to us on Threads ( https://threads.net/@metatechpod ), Instagram ( https://instagram.com/metatechpod ) and don’t forget to follow our host Pascal ( https://mastodon.social/@passy , https://threads.net/@passy_ ). Fancy working with us? Check out https://www.metacareers.com/ . Links Pyrefly: https://pyrefly.org/ Pyre: https://pyre-check.org/ Ruff: https://github.com/astral-sh/ruff PEP 484: https://peps.python.org/pep-0484/ Timestamps Intro 0:06 Rebecca Introduction 1:45 Maggie Introduction 2:45 Neil (Re-)Introduction 3:12 Team Mission 3:56 History of Typing in Python 4:29 The State of Typed Python at Meta 5:32 fbcode 6:02 Original Motivation for building Pyre 6:19 Justifying the Rewrite 7:48 Pyrefly vs the Rest 9:41 Why Rust? 10:45 Fearless Concurrency 12:02 Why is it faster? 12:37 Python community and Rust 14:57 Pyrefly wasm crate 15:46 Upgrade experience 17:34 Type checking differences 19:12 IDE experience 21:31 State of Pyrefly at Meta 22:27 Being open-source-first 23:36 Open-source challenges 25:06 Unexpected challenges 26:39 Outro 31:05…

Meta Tech Podcast

1
74: Taking the plunge - The engineering journey of building a Subsea Cable 39:49

18 days ago39:49

39:49

To ensure that everyone has access to resilient, high-speed and low-latency connections to Meta services, no matter where in the world they are, Meta makes large-scale investments into subsea cable infrastructure. The recently announced Project Water worth will, Once complete, reach five major continents and span over 50,000 km (longer than the Earth’s circumference), making it the world’s longest subsea cable project using the highest-capacity technology available. In this episode, host Pascal talks with another Pascal and his colleague Andy who are involved at every stage of these projects and share the surprising challenges one has to deal with when working on the largest subsea cable project in the world. Got feedback? Send it to us on Threads ( https://threads.net/@metatechpod ), Instagram ( https://instagram.com/metatechpod ) and don’t forget to follow our host Pascal ( https://mastodon.social/@passy , https://threads.net/@passy_ ). Fancy working with us? Check out https://www.metacareers.com/ . Links Project Waterworth: https://engineering.fb.com/2025/02/14/connectivity/project-waterworth-ai-subsea-infrastructure/ Timestamps Intro 0:06 Introduction Andy 2:14 Introduction Pascal 3:21 Why do we build our own subsea cable infrastructure? 4:15 Current state of Meta-owned subsea cables 6:20 Project Waterworth 7:40 Why invest in more subsea cables? 9:00 What does a cable look like? 11:14 The process of laying subsea cable 16:39 Unexpected findings on the ocean floor 19:25 Shallow vs deep ocean 21:12 Merging different cable types 24:00 What happens when a cable breaks? 25:04 Memorable challenges 27:42 Cable capacity 29:51 The long history of subsea cables 33:07 What's next? 36:27 Outro 39:02…

Meta Tech Podcast

1
73: Mobile GraphQL at Meta in 2025 42:43

7 weeks ago42:43

42:43

Join Pascal and Sabrina on the latest Meta Tech Podcast episode as they discuss the evolution and future of GraphQL. From client-side consistency to innovative APIs, learn how GraphQL is making developers' lives easier and enhancing user experiences. Discover surprising insights into the challenges of building a mobile GraphQL platform and how it's transforming product development at Meta. Got feedback? Send it to us on Threads ( https://threads.net/@metatechpod ), Instagram ( https://instagram.com/metatechpod ) and don’t forget to follow our host Pascal ( https://mastodon.social/@passy , https://threads.net/@passy_ ). Fancy working with us? Check out https://www.metacareers.com/ . Links GraphQL: https://graphql.org/ Relay: https://relay.dev/ Sabrina at GraphQL Conf 2024: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGBC-0E-kco Timestamps Intro 0:06 Introduction Sabrina 1:42 Sabrina's team 2:47 What's GraphQL? 3:18 Relay and Mobile GraphQL Clients 4:01 GraphQL Consistency Engine 4:54 Pando Mobile GraphQL Client 7:16 Interfacing with Pando 8:03 Code generation 9:14 Inventing new features 10:43 The hidden complexity behind pagination 11:52 Working inside the GraphQL spec 16:00 Complexity tradeoffs 18:30 State of GraphQL at Meta 21:16 Measuring success 24:58 Optimistic Mutations 27:31 Collaboration model 31:42 Preventing early adoption 34:43 The challenge of migrating FBApp 37:10 What's next for mobile GraphQL? 40:22 Outro 41:54…

Meta Tech Podcast

1
72: Multimodal AI for Ray-Ban Meta glasses 39:34

11 weeks ago39:34

39:34

In this episode of the Meta Tech Podcast, host Pascal sits down with Shane, a research scientist at Meta, to explore the cutting-edge research behind Ray-Ban Meta glasses. Shane shares insights from his seven-year journey at Meta, where he focuses on computer vision and multimodal AI within the Wearables AI organization. Tune in to learn how Shane's team is pioneering foundational models for Ray-Ban Meta glasses, tackling unique challenges, and pushing the boundaries of AI-driven innovation. Discover how multimodal AI is transforming user experiences and get a glimpse into the future of wearable technology. Whether you're an engineer, a tech enthusiast, or simply curious about the latest advancements, there is something for everyone in this episode. Got feedback? Send it to us on Threads ( https://threads.net/@metatechpod ), Instagram ( https://instagram.com/metatechpod ) and don’t forget to follow our host Pascal ( https://mastodon.social/@passy , https://threads.net/@passy_ ). Fancy working with us? Check out https://www.metacareers.com/ . Links AnyMAL: An Efficient and Scalable Any-Modality Augmented Language Model - https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.16058 Be My Eyes Programme: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenaquino/2024/10/11/inside-the-be-my-eyes-meta-collaboration-and-the-allure-to--impact-humanity/ Meta Open Source on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@metaopensource CacheLib: https://cachelib.org/ Meta’s AI-Powered Ray-Bans Are Life-Enhancing for the Blind - Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/metas-ai-powered-ray-bans-are-life-enhancing-for-the-blind-3ae38026 Timestamps Intro 0:06 OSS News 0:56 Introduction Shane 1:30 The role of research scientist over time 3:03 What's Multimodal AI? 5:45 Applying Multimodal AI in Meta's products 7:21 Acoustic modalities beyond speech 9:17 AnyMAL 12:23 Encoder zoos 13:53 0-shot performance 16:25 Iterating on models 17:28 LLM parameter size 19:29 How do we process a request from the glasses? 21:53 Processing moving images 23:44 Scaling to billions of users 26:01 Where lies the optimisation potential? 28:12 Incorporating feedback 29:08 Open-source influence 31:30 Be My Eyes Programme 33:57 Working with industry experts at Meta 36:18 Outro 38:55…

Meta Tech Podcast

1
71: Translating Java to Kotlin at Scale 38:09

15 weeks ago38:09

38:09

How do you translate roughly ten million lines of Java code to Kotlin? Clicking in your the IDE gets pretty repetitive after a while and doesn’t work if you have custom APIs and requirements for null safety. Eve and Jocelyn, two software engineers on the Mobile Infra Codebases Team have taken on this challenge and talk host Pascal through the unexpected difficulties when embarking on the journey to (close to) 100% Kotlin in our Android codebase. Got feedback? Send it to us on Threads ( https://threads.net/@metatechpod ), Instagram ( https://instagram.com/metatechpod ) and don’t forget to follow our host Pascal ( https://mastodon.social/@passy , https://threads.net/@passy_ ). Fancy working with us? Check out https://www.metacareers.com/ . Links Meta Engineering Blog - Translating Java to Kotlin at Scale: https://engineering.fb.com/2024/12/18/android/translating-java-to-kotlin-at-scale/ Open-source transformations: https://github.com/fbsamples/kotlin_ast_tools Mobile @Scale Conference recordings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7xSnbrk4CI Timestamps Intro 0:06 Introduction Eve 1:11 Introduction Jocelyn 2:15 Team mission 2:44 The scale of Meta's codebase 3:40 Why is there so much code? 4:34 Why migrate to Kotlin? 5:45 Isn't Kotlin slow to compile? 7:51 Why not use Android Studio's converter? 8:28 Nullability differences 10:04 Meta Codemod Service 14:50 Kotlin codemod stages 17:07 Headless J2K 20:14 Open-source transformations 23:14 Java Nullsafe 24:47 Leveraging Linters 26:01 Fixing build errors 27:24 Unexpected challenges 29:33 State of the union 33:44 Outro 36:10 Outtakes 37:08…

Meta Tech Podcast

1
70: Jetpack Compose at Meta 44:30

21 weeks ago44:30

44:30

Introducing a new Android UI Framework like Jetpack Compose into an existing app is easy right? Import some AARs and code away. But what if your app has specific performance goals to meet, has existing design components, integrations with navigation and logging frameworks? That is where Summer and her team come in who handle large-scale migrations for Instagram. They aim to provide developers with the best possible experience when working on our code bases, even if that requires some temporary pain on the side of infrastructure teams that have to maintain multiple implementations at once. Why Summer thinks it is worth it, how they approach the rollout of a new framework and so much more is all discussed in episode 70. Got feedback? Send it to us on Threads ( https://threads.net/@metatechpod ), Instagram ( https://instagram.com/metatechpod ) and don’t forget to follow our host Pascal ( https://mastodon.social/@passy , https://threads.net/@passy_ ). Fancy working with us? Check out https://www.metacareers.com/ . Links Jetpack Compose: https://developer.android.com/compose Litho: https://fblitho.com/ Google Showcase: Meta built threads in only 5 months using Jetpack Compose: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2023/10/meta-built-threads-in-only-5-months-using-jetpack-compose.html Flipper: https://fbflipper.com/ Timestamps Intro 0:06 Intro Summer 1:29 Notable differences moving from FB to IG 2:26 The Instagram Data & UI Architecture team 2:58 Why modernise? 3:44 Where has the risk paid off? 6:08 What does Compose look like? 7:49 Compose v Litho 11:15 Where does Litho still have the upper hand? 14:53 Meta contributions to Compose 16:38 Compose pitfalls 19:10 Rolling Compose out across the company 20:13 Design systems 22:12 Downsides of establishing another UI framework? 24:22 Rollout stages 28:43 Experimentation stage 32:32 Closed enrollment phase 38:15 Graduation criteria 39:38 Outro 42:20 Bants 44:04…

Meta Tech Podcast

1
69: To type or not to type — measuring productivity impact with DAT 40:21

24 weeks ago40:21

40:21

Do types actually make you more productive or is it just more typing for you to do on the keyboard? That's just one of the questions we managed to answer at least on a small scale with Diff Authoring Time or DAT, here at Meta. Want to know how we leverage metrics to run experiments on productivity in our internal codebase? Tune in to episode 69. Got feedback? Send it to us on Threads ( https://threads.net/@metatechpod ), Instagram ( https://instagram.com/metatechpod ) and don’t forget to follow our host @passy ( https://mastodon.social/@passy , and https://threads.net/@passy_ ). Fancy working with us? Check out https://www.metacareers.com/ . Links Hack language: https://hacklang.org/ Timestamps Intro 0:06 Henri Intro 1:45 Ian Intro 3:13 Moritz Re-Intro 3:28 DAT Recap 3:48 What is Hack? 4:20 Inner and outer loop 14:13 Experimenting with language features 17:47 Code sharing frameworks at Meta 27:43 Measuring framework productivity 29:01 Will we see more experiments? 34:23 Time savings from code sharing 37:28 Outro 39:03 Blooper 39:52…

Meta Tech Podcast

1
68: How to Build a Mixed Reality Headset 34:52

28 weeks ago34:52

34:52

How do you build your own mixed reality headset from sketch to scale? That's exactly what Alfred Jones, VP of hardware engineering at Meta Reality Labs, discussed with host Pascal. From choosing the right display technology, battery, thermal budget and of course hitting the right price point. How he manages to not fall victim to choice paralysis and so much more in episode 68. Got feedback? Send it to us on Threads ( https://threads.net/@metatechpod ) or Instagram ( https://instagram.com/metatechpod ) and don’t forget to follow our host Pascal ( https://threads.net/@passy_ ). Fancy working with us? Check out https://www.metacareers.com/ . Links Caddy: https://engineering.fb.com/2024/07/18/virtual-reality/caddy-cad-mixed-reality-mr-meta/ Timestamps Intro 0:06 Alfred Introduction 1:40 Who do you work with? 3:23 Decision making frameworks 5:20 Is MR the final destination? 7:19 What makes good passthrough such a challenge? 10:18 How to build your own MR headset 13:51 Hardware design constraints 19:00 Prototype phases 22:34 Durability testing 26:23 Dogfooding at Meta 28:55 Magic wand for technical limitations 31:56 Outro 34:26…

Meta Tech Podcast

1
67: Measuring Developer Productivity with Diff Authoring Time 37:01

33 weeks ago37:01

37:01

At Meta, engineers are our biggest asset which is why we have an entire org tasked with making them as productive as possible. But how do you know if your projects for improving developer experience are actually successful? For any other product, you would run an A/B test but that requires metrics and how do you measure developer productivity? Sarita and Moritz have been working on exactly that with Diff Authoring Time which measures how long it took to submit a change to our codebase. Host Pascal talks to them about the way this is implemented, the challenges and abilities this unlocks. 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/ . You can follow our guest Moritz on X ( https://x.com/Inventitech) or check out his website on inventitech.com . Links Meta Connect 2024: https://www.meta.com/en-gb/connect/ Timestamps Episode intro 0:05 Sarita Intro 2:33 Moritz Intro 3:44 DevInfra as an Engineer 4:25 DevInfra as a Data Scientist 5:12 Why DevEx Metrics? 6:04 Average Diff Authoring Time at Meta 9:55 Events for calculating DAT 10:55 Edge cases 13:15 DAT for Performance Evaluation? 20:29 Analyses on DAT data 22:29 Onboarding to DAT 23:23 Stat-sig data 25:06 Validating the metric 26:34 Versioning metrics 28:09 Detecting and handling biases 29:19 Diff coverage 30:30 Do we need DevX metrics in an AI software engineering world? 31:23 Measuring the impact of AI tools 32:23 What's next for DAT? 33:40 Outtakes 36:22…

Meta Tech Podcast

1
66: Inside Bento - Serverless Jupyter Notebooks at Meta 44:21

37 weeks ago44:21

44:21

Bento is Meta’s internal distribution of Jupyter Notebooks, an open-source web-based computing platform. Host Pascal is joined by Steve who worked with his team on building many features on top of Jupyter, including scheduled notebooks, sharing with colleagues and running notebooks without a remote server component by leveraging Webassembly in the browser. 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 Scheduling Jupyter Notebooks at Meta: https://engineering.fb.com/2023/08/29/security/scheduling-jupyter-notebooks-meta/ Serverless Jupyter Notebooks at Meta: https://engineering.fb.com/2024/06/10/data-infrastructure/serverless-jupyter-notebooks-bento-meta/ Jupyter Notebooks: https://jupyter.org/ Timestamps Intro 0:06 Who is Steve? 1:49 What are Jupyter and Bento? 2:48 Who is Bento for? 3:40 Internal-only Bento features 4:42 Scheduled notebooks 11:39 Integrating with existing batch jobs 17:10 The case for serverless notebooks 20:59 Enter wasm 24:29 Upgrade paths from serverless to server 26:29 Bringing more Python libraries to the browser 30:21 Adding magick(s) 31:52 DataFrame magic and AI 36:41 What's next? 38:29 Outro 43:17…

Meta Tech Podcast

1
65: Getting Ready for Post-Quantum Cryptography 35:49

42 weeks ago35:49

35:49

We don’t know when but at some point in the future we will face what researchers call a "Quantum Apocalypse". This is when quantum computers will be able to break many of our existing encryption algorithms. To keep Meta’a users safe even from attacks that don’t even exist today, Sheran and Rafael are working on post-quantum-ready encryption. Tune in to learn about the various challenges and trade offs that this work brings with it. 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 Post-quantum readiness for TLS at Meta: https://engineering.fb.com/2024/05/22/security/post-quantum-readiness-tls-pqr-meta/ Fizz TLS implementation: https://github.com/facebookincubator/fizz liboqs: https://github.com/open-quantum-safe/liboqs NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Submissions: https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/post-quantum-cryptography/post-quantum-cryptography-standardization/round-3-submissions Timestamps Intro 0:06 Meta Open Source 101 1:10 Intros 1:49 Sheran Intro 2:31 Rafael Intro 3:37 Then Quantum Apocalypse 5:24 Why symmetric and asymmetric algos behave differently 8:10 Why invest in tomorrow's problems? 9:21 First deployment target 14:17 Choosing an algorithm 18:06 Choosing the right parameters 19:51 Performance costs and wins 21:28 Stack 23:33 Challenges 25:26 What's next for PQC? 30:38 Working with NIST 32:59 Outro 34:30 Outtakes 35:43…

Meta Tech Podcast

1
64: Caddy - Building the next generation of CAD software for Mixed Reality 1:04:19

45 weeks ago1:04:19

1:04:19

After sitting in one too many Zoom meetings looking at flat images of 3D models, mechanical engineers Ed, Jason, Fan, and Raghavan decided that they could do better, taught themselves how to code and started to build Caddy - a CAD app for mixed reality. Tune in to episode 64 to hear their story. 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 Caddy video: https://heycaddy.net/ Caddy on the Quest Store: https://www.meta.com/en-gb/experiences/24212682218375897/ @Scale conference on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd9I8ZkgoR1d7GeSj_wi_LQ MLow @Scale talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ypsZUNRjI4 MLow blog post: https://engineering.fb.com/2024/06/13/web/mlow-metas-low-bitrate-audio-codec/ Faster Incident Response with GenAI @Scale talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpe7eAR90Ko Llama 3: https://llama.meta.com/llama3/ Meta Unity SDKs: https://developer.oculus.com/documentation/unity/ Prisms VR: https://www.prismsvr.com/ Timestamps Intro 0:06 Ed Intro 2:12 Raghavan Intro 3:15 Fan Intro 3:44 Jason Intro 4:16 What is Caddy? 4:49 Why build Caddy? 6:52 Discovery of hand-based interactions 11:46 Supported import formats 14:09 Learning to code 18:09 Time to Caddy MVP 27:48 Off-the-shelf components 29:04 Outgrowing the initial vision 32:48 AI in Caddy 43:25 Challenges building Caddy 52:38 What's next? 55:40 How to get in touch? 56:56 Excitement in MR 57:38 Outro 1:03:35…

Meta Tech Podcast

1
63: The key to a happy Rust/C++ relationship 45:00

50 weeks ago45:00

45:00

Aida was part of one of the first Rust teams here at Meta. One of the biggest challenges was interacting with the large amount of existing C++. With the release of cxx, safe interop between C++ and even async Rust has become a lot easier. 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 Aida’s talk at Rust Nation: https://youtu.be/tsEuA9S5q9Q cxx: https://crates.io/crates/cxx Sapling: https://sapling-scm.com/ Timestamps Intro 0:06 Aida Intro 2:06 Rust in Meta Source Control 2:50 State of Rust at Meta 10:11 bindgen 13:25 cxx vs bindgen 17:49 async Rust and C++ 19:04 Dealing with Lifetimes 28:19 Fixing Memory Leaks 31:25 Thread safety with Send and Sync 33:48 A Magic Wand for Async Rust 39:52 Outro 43:04 Outtakes 43:50…

Meta Tech Podcast

1
62: Building Threads for Web 40:07

1 year ago40:07

40:07

The basic version of Threads for web was built in just under three months by two engineers, mirroring the nimble engineering practices we talked about on this podcast before when it came to launching Threads for Android and iOS. In this episode, Pascal is joined by Ally and Kevin, two engineers on the Threads Web team. They talk about how shared infrastructure with other Meta web properties allows them to move fast and how they manage to balance the need to ship new features with the desire to craft delightful experiences for their users. 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 StyleX: https://stylexjs.com/ FlowJS: https://flow.org/ Introducing Meta Llama 3: https://ai.meta.com/blog/meta-llama-3/ Building custom silicon for the future of AI: https://www.metacareers.com/life/building-custom-silicon-for-the-future-of-ai Building Meta’s GenAI Infrastructure: https://engineering.fb.com/2024/03/12/data-center-engineering/building-metas-genai-infrastructure/ Timestamps Intro 0:06 Intro Ally and Kevin 1:44 Why focus on Web? 2:48 Kevin's contributions 4:42 Focus on craft 6:18 Editing Threads 7:34 Ally's contributions 10:40 Prioritising delight and shipping features 12:02 Launching Threads Web 13:30 Shared Infra 16:13 Tech Stack 19:15 The DevX of Meta www 23:51 Challenges 30:57 Favourite bit of polish 34:32 Outtakes 39:18…

Meta Tech Podcast

1
61: Image Quality Improvements at Scale 37:29

1 year ago37:29

37:29

Every day, trillions of image download requests are made from Meta’s family of apps. Zuzanna works on the Media Platform Team that owns the entire flow from serving images from the CDN to displaying the pixels on your phone. One of the project she and her team recently worked on was rolling out HDR images to Instagram and Threads and in this episode’s interview, Zuzanna tells show host Pascal how they partnered with large phone manufacturers to develop and roll out the new feature. 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 Fresco: https://frescolib.org/ Timestamps Intro 0:06 Intro Zuza 1:44 Image Infra Team 3:23 The scale of images at Meta 5:10 Measuring quality 10:01 HDR photos 12:13 HDR file formats 19:02 HDR photo availability today 22:34 Partnering with phone vendors 30:40 Why photos after videos? 32:27 Outro 36:22…

Meta Tech Podcast

1
60: Simplified Executable Deployment with DotSlash 40:40

1 year ago40:40

40:40

Distributing binaries and toolchains to developers is a pain but DotSlash makes it a breeze. Instead of committing large, platform-specific executables to your repository, DotSlash combines a fast Rust program with a JSON manifest prefixed with a #! to transparently fetch and execute the binary you need. Tune in to our interview with Andres and Michael to learn more. 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 Simple Precision Time Protocol at Meta: https://engineering.fb.com/2024/02/07/production-engineering/simple-precision-time-protocol-sptp-meta/ Meta Time libraries on GitHub: https://github.com/facebook/time DotSlash - Simplified executable deployment: https://engineering.fb.com/2024/02/06/developer-tools/dotslash-simplified-executable-deployment/ DotSlash website: https://dotslash-cli.com/ DotSlash on GitHub: https://github.com/facebook/dotslash Timestamps Intro 0:05 Intro Andres 2:30 Intro Michael 3:39 Andres's Projects at Meta 3:54 Michael's Projects at Meta 5:00 What is DotSlash? 5:30 DotSlash vs LFS 6:04 DotSlash vs buck2 run 7:08 Where is DotSlash used at Meta? 8:45 How does DotSlash work? 9:37 DotSlash on Windows 13:15 How DotSlash is built 16:21 Bundling the rust toolchain 17:14 Automated DotSlash file generation 20:33 DotSlash and remote execution 24:53 Storage providers 26:27 Why open-source? 30:05 Limitations 34:17 Cache Eviction 36:59 Outro 39:22 Bloopers 40:15…

Meta Tech Podcast

1
59: Meta ❤️ Python 3.12 38:13

1 year ago38:13

38:13

For the second time in just a few months, we are talking Python on the Meta Tech Podcast. Python 3.12 features a whole range of new features, many of which were contributed by Meta. Carl and Itamar join Pascal to talk about their contributions to the latest release, including new hooks that allow for custom JITs like Cinder, Immortal Objects, improvements to the type system, faster comprehensions and much more. In their discussion, they talk not just about how and why those features were built but also the process of upstreaming and engaging with the community. 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 “Lazy is the new fast: How Lazy Imports and Cinder accelerate machine learning at Meta” - https://engineering.fb.com/2024/01/18/developer-tools/lazy-imports-cinder-machine-learning-meta/ “How Meta built the infrastructure for Threads” - https://engineering.fb.com/2023/12/19/core-infra/how-meta-built-the-infrastructure-for-threads/ Cinder on GitHub - https://github.com/facebookincubator/cinder “Meta contributes new features to Python 3.12” - https://engineering.fb.com/2023/10/05/developer-tools/python-312-meta-new-features/ Timestamps Intro 0:06 Carl Intro 2:09 Itamar Intro 3:27 Teams and Missions 5:10 Python 3 Faster Coroutines 8:57 Code Watchers and JIT Hooks 12:10 When to upstream 13:53 How to upstream to CPython 16:19 History of Cinder 21:35 Why not upstream Cinder? 25:48 Cinder hooks in CPython 29:34 Free Threading 34:10 Outro 37:08…

Meta Tech Podcast

1
58: Advancing GenAI at Meta 30:10

1 year ago30:10

30:10

For this last episode of 2024, Pascal talks with Devi, an AI research director at Meta. They talk about the history of AI at Meta, some of the basic terms, how Meta's approach to developing and using AI differs notably from other companies and what the future has in store. 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 Meta AI Blog: https://ai.meta.com/ Purple Llama: https://ai.meta.com/blog/purple-llama-open-trust-safety-generative-ai/ AI Alliance: https://ai.meta.com/blog/ai-alliance/ Audiobox: https://ai.meta.com/blog/audiobox-generating-audio-voice-natural-language-prompts/ Emu Video and Emu Edit: https://ai.meta.com/blog/emu-text-to-video-generation-image-editing-research/ Meta AI Agents: https://about.fb.com/news/2023/09/introducing-ai-powered-assistants-characters-and-creative-tools/ Timestamps Intro 0:00 Introduction Devi 2:27 AI vs ML 4:00 History of AI at Meta 6:03 Deep learning and LLMs 9:32 LLMs vs GenAI 11:42 Multi-modal models 12:21 Meta's AI agents 14:33 Meta's open approach to AI 16:53 Image and video generation and editing 22:28 Most exciting future AI developments 27:17 Outro 28:57…

Meta Tech Podcast

1
ARCHIVE: From Facebook Home to Instagram Stories 45:41

1 year ago45:41

45:41

We’re jumping into our time machine and going back to 2018 for an interview with Will B. about the various twists and turns that led to the creation of Instagram Stories. We will be back with a fresh interview next month. 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 Rebound: https://github.com/facebookarchive/rebound Origami Studio: https://origami.design/ Timestamps Intro 0:06 Will Bailey 1:14 Early FB iOS app 7:16 Release Trains 11:52 The End of HTML5 13:29 Migration to Native 16:05 Facebook Home 17:02 Design Collaboration 22:03 Instagram 26:33 Slingshot 27:57 Instagram for Android 29:54 Instagram Stories 35:37 Rebound 41:25 Outro 44:41…

Meta Tech Podcast

1
57: Writing and linting Python at scale 49:32

2 years ago49:32

49:32

Python at Meta is huge. Not only does it famously power Instagram's backend, but it underpins our configuration systems, much of our AI work and many services. Amethyst joins Pascal for this episode of the Meta Tech Podcast to talk about how the Python Foundation Team works to improve the developer experience of everyone working with Python at Meta and Fixit 2, the freshly open-sourced linter framework built on top of libcst. 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 Fixit 2 announcement post: https://engineering.fb.com/2023/08/07/developer-tools/fixit-2-linter-meta/ Fixit: https://fixit.readthedocs.io µfmt: https://ufmt.omnilib.dev µsort: https://usort.readthedocs.io LibCST: https://libcst.readthedocs.io 5 Things You Didn’t Know About Buck2: https://engineering.fb.com/2023/10/23/developer-tools/5-things-you-didnt-know-about-buck2/ Scheduling Jupyter Notebooks at Meta: https://engineering.fb.com/2023/08/29/security/scheduling-jupyter-notebooks-meta/ Timestamps Intro 0:06 Intro Amethyst 1:57 Production vs Software Engineering 3:41 PE for language teams 5:40 Python at Meta 6:58 Python3 migration 10:15 Projects on the Python Foundation Team 16:30 libcst and codemods 21:55 What Python looks like at Meta 25:53 Meta's involvement in the Python community 30:30 The importance of lints at Meta 35:13 Why another linter? 39:11 Favourite lint 46:26 Outro 48:17 Bloopers 48:54…

Meta Tech Podcast

1
56: How Threads was built in 5 months 31:10

2 years ago31:10

31:10

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…

Meta Tech Podcast

1
55: What it's like to ship code at Meta 49:04

2 years ago49:04

49:04

For episode 55, Pascal speaks with Katherine and returning guest Dustin, two software engineers at Meta about how to ship code at Meta. Why do we have a monorepo? Why and how do we do pre-commit code review? What does our CI infrastructure look like? Get the answers to these questions and many more in this episode of the Meta Tech Podcast. 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 The evolution of Facebook’s iOS app architecture - Engineering At Meta: https://engineering.fb.com/2023/02/06/ios/facebook-ios-app-architecture/ Episode 47: Source control at Meta - https://pca.st/episode/429e9f38-6537-43e3-b929-fbeeda326ed5 Timestamps Intro 0:06 Intro Katherine 1:55 Dustin's Origin Story 4:38 Topic Intro 6:28 Why Monorepo(s) 7:18 What Makes Monorepos Hard? 12:15 Why do we Have so Many Files? 17:31 Who Owns Stuff? 25:29 Life of a Diff 28:58 Writing Bots Writing Code Writing Bots 34:16 Finding Reviewers 38:46 Why Are Things Not Constantly on Fire? 41:43 Outro 47:47 Outtakes 48:46…

Meta Tech Podcast

1
54: Building Key Transparency at WhatsApp 43:23

2 years ago43:23

43:23

In April, WhatsApp announced the launch of a new cryptographic security feature to automatically verify a secured connection based on key transparency. Key transparency helps strengthen the guarantee that end-to-end encryption provides to private, personal messaging applications in a transparent manner available to all. Rolling out a feature like this to WhatsApp's user base is not a small feat and requires some clever engineering to scale to the billions of users relying on WhatsApp to stay in touch with friends, family and business. Pascal is joined by Sean and Kevin to discuss what Key Transparency means in practice and the various challenges they encountered as they scaled it up to billions of users. 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 Infer: https://fbinfer.com/ Infer on GitHub: https://github.com/facebook/infer MTP Episode 18 about Infer: https://pca.st/5U9V Deploying key transparency at WhatsApp - Engineering at Meta: https://engineering.fb.com/2023/04/13/security/whatsapp-key-transparency/ GitHub - facebook/akd: An implementation of an auditable key directory: https://github.com/facebook/akd/ Parakeet: Practical Key Transparency for End-to-End Encrypted Messaging: https://www.ndss-symposium.org/ndss-paper/parakeet-practical-key-transparency-for-end-to-end-encrypted-messaging/ SEEMless: Secure End-to-End Encrypted Messaging with less trust: https://eprint.iacr.org/2018/607 Coniks: Bringing Key Transparency to End Users: https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity15/technical-sessions/presentation/melara IETF Working Group on Key Transparency: https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/keytrans/about Timestamps Intro 0:06 News Update: Infer turns 10 1:34 Interview Intro 4:27 Intro Kevin 4:45 Intro Sean 6:07 WhatsApp's mission 6:47 PETs 7:58 E2E basics 8:59 Key transparency 10:32 Crypto community response 18:20 End-user changes 19:57 Technical challenges and zero-knowledge proofs 23:18 AKD 28:27 Internal deployment 32:02 Outro 42:16 Bloopers 43:05…

Meta Tech Podcast

1
53: Offensive security at Meta’s Red Team X 41:38

2 years ago41:38

41:38

Red Team X is a security team at Meta that is responsible for finding and exploiting vulnerabilities in third-party products that could impact Meta's own security. The team acts as a hybrid between a traditional red team, which focuses on probing their own organisation's systems and products for vulnerabilities, and an elite bug-hunting group. The team was founded by Vlad I. in 2020 when the pandemic and the sudden shift to Work From Home challenged various previously-held assumptions about security. In his discussion with Pascal, Vlad explains the roles of different security teams within Meta, how they go about prioritising the highest-impact targets to exploit and how they work with vendors to ensure not just Meta but the entire world benefits from the fixes produced. Got feedback? Send it to us on Twitter ( https://twitter.com/metatechpod ), Instagram ( https://instagram.com/metatechpod ) and don’t forget to follow our host @passy ( https://twitter.com/passy and https://mastodon.social/@passy ). Fancy working with us? Check out https://www.metacareers.com/ . Links: The Diff episode about Velox: https://thediffpodcast.com/docs/episode-17 Risky Business Podcast: https://risky.biz/ RTX Blog: https://rtx.meta.security RTX Disclosures: https://rtx.meta.security/bugs RTX in WIRED: https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-red-team-x-vulnerabilities/ Timestamps: Intro 0:06 Vlad Intro 1:55 Red Teaming 2:43 Staying up-to-date 6:34 Different team colours 10:02 Defence-in-depth 12:44 Red Team X 15:57 Hardware v Software 19:43 Focus areas 21:29 Prioritising requests 22:44 Notable RTX Disclosures 26:05 Vulnerability disclosure policy 28:52 Getting into offensive security 38:48 Outro 40:51…

Meta Tech Podcast

1
52: The success story behind PyTorch 32:36

2 years ago32:36

32:36

PyTorch is now one of the most popular machine learning frameworks out there but that was not a foregone conclusion when it was released in 2016. Our host Pascal is joined by Suraj, a developer advocate here at Meta, to dissect the history of PyTorch and look at the factors that contributed to its success. That includes understanding your target audience, maintaining backwards compatibility, fostering a helpful community and so much more. You don't need to be an expert in PyTorch to enjoy the discussion as Suraj explains all the basics. Got feedback? Send it to us on Twitter ( https://twitter.com/metatechpod ), Instagram ( https://instagram.com/metatechpod ) and don’t forget to follow our host @passy ( https://twitter.com/passy and https://mastodon.social/@passy ). Fancy working with us? Check out https://www.metacareers.com/ . Links: Meta Open Source Blog: Creating Safe Spaces for Underrepresented Individuals in Open Source Communities - https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2023/05/31/creating-safe-spaces/ PyTorch Developer Podcast - https://pytorch-dev-podcast.simplecast.com/ PyTorch - https://pytorch.org/ PyTorch on GitHub - https://github.com/pytorch/pytorch Announcing the PyTorch Foundation: A new era for the cutting-edge AI framework - https://ai.facebook.com/blog/pytorch-foundation/ Timestamps: Intro 0:05 Suraj Intro 1:52 What is PyTorch? 4:39 History of PyTorch 5:33 Choosing a Target Audience 7:27 Python and Performance 11:20 Design Decisions 19:04 OSS Governance and Community 21:11 PyTorch 2.0 25:47 How to get started 28:32 Outro 30:14 Bloopers 32:16…

Meta Tech Podcast

1
51: Buck2 - a large-scale build system 32:53

2 years ago32:53

32:53

For episode 51, Pascal speaks with Neil and Marie, two of the engineers behind Buck2, our open source, large scale build system. Thousands of developers at Meta are already using Buck2 and performing millions of builds per day that on average complete in half the time of Buck1 builds. Marie and Neil discuss the design choices that make Buck2 so much faster and the various challenges they faced in engineering and open sourcing the build system. Got feedback? Send it to us on Twitter ( https://twitter.com/metatechpod ), Instagram ( https://instagram.com/metatechpod ) and don’t forget to follow our host @passy ( https://twitter.com/passy and https://mastodon.social/@passy ). Fancy working with us? Check out https://www.metacareers.com/ . Links Announcement blog post: https://engineering.fb.com/2023/04/06/open-source/buck2-open-source-large-scale-build-system/ Buck2: https://buck2.build/ Buck2 on GitHub: https://github.com/facebook/buck2 Build Systems à la Carte - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/uploads/prod/2018/03/build-systems.pdf Lexical YouTube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpv0BYhhlak Lexical for iOS: https://github.com/facebook/lexical-ios Timestamps Intro 0:06 Intro Marie 1:30 Intro Neil 2:57 Why a custom build tool? 4:21 Rewriting Buck 6:49 Buck2 vs Bazel 8:49 Building language support 12:06 Buck2 as a developer 13:15 Upgrade from Buck1 to Buck2 15:05 How is Buck2 faster? 16:31 Rust and Profiling 18:44 From Python to Starlark 25:54 Open-Sourcing 28:18 Outro 32:15…

Meta Tech Podcast

1
50: De-identified authentication at scale 34:45

2 years ago34:45

34:45

If you hear privacy and your first thought is laborious processes and access management, this interview may be just as mind-expanding for you as it was for our host Pascal. He is joined by Alex and Haozhi who talk about the Anonymous Credential Service (ACS), a highly available multitenant service that allows clients to authenticate in a de-identified manner. They discuss the cryptographic primitives powering the service and the various challenges they encountered scaling it to support Meta's products. Got feedback? Send it to us on Twitter ( https://twitter.com/metatechpod ), Instagram ( https://instagram.com/metatechpod ) and don’t forget to follow our host @passy ( https://twitter.com/passy and https://mastodon.social/@passy ). Fancy working with us? Check out https://www.metacareers.com/ . Links How Meta enables de-identified authentication at scale - https://engineering.fb.com/2022/03/30/security/de-identified-authentication-at-scale/ Open-sourcing Anonymous Credential Service - https://engineering.fb.com/2022/12/12/security/anonymous-credential-service-acs-open-source/ ACS on GitHub - https://github.com/facebookresearch/acs ReactJS - The Documentary - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pDqJVdNa44 Timestamps Intro 0:12 Alex and Haozhi Intro 1:22 Cryptography and Privacy 2:47 Team Mission 3:35 Data Minimisation 4:28 PETs 5:13 Why authenticate? 8:39 ACS under the hood 10:06 ACS Architecture 16:02 Challenges 21:03 ACS in Open Source 26:36 Key-Derivation Functions 29:22 How to get started 32:10 Outro 33:47 Bloopers 34:29…

Meta Tech Podcast

1
49: Kotlin DevX at Instagram 33:53

2 years ago33:53

33:53

Lisa works on the Dev Craft team at Instagram that embarked on a journey to bring Kotlin to the Instagram for Android code base a little over three years ago. Now, nearly half of the large codebase is migrated and over 80% of newly committed code is in Kotlin. Tune in to hear what the unique challenges of bringing a new language to an existing app are and what it means for build speed, IDE experiences and developer happiness. Got feedback? Send it to us on Twitter ( https://twitter.com/metatechpod ), Instagram ( https://instagram.com/metatechpod ) and don’t forget to follow our host @passy ( https://twitter.com/passy and https://mastodon.social/@passy ). Fancy working with us? Check out https://www.metacareers.com/ . Links Meta Engineering Blog: How Meta brought AV1 to Reels - https://engineering.fb.com/2023/02/21/video-engineering/av1-codec-facebook-instagram-reels/ Source-only ABIs for Java - https://engineering.fb.com/2017/11/09/android/rethinking-android-app-compilation-with-buck/ Timestamps Intro 0:06 Intro Lisa 1:27 Dev Craft at Instagram 3:03 Building DevX Partnerships 3:56 The History of Kotlin at Instagram 6:22 Declarative UI 18:29 Build Speed Challenges 20:25 Source-Only ABIs 23:19 IDE Performance 26:19 Kotlin at IG in 2023 27:15 Outro 32:02 Bloopers 33:07…

Meta Tech Podcast

1
48: A 94% reduction for basic video compute time on Instagram 37:22

2 years ago37:22

37:22

Ryan and his team found a quick way of reducing the compute resources spent on encoding videos for Instagram by 94%, but that was actually the easy part. Tune in to learn what the fix was and how you roll out changes that can affect the user experience of billions of users. Got feedback? Send it to us on Twitter ( https://twitter.com/metatechpod ), Instagram ( https://instagram.com/metatechpod ) and don’t forget to follow our host @passy ( https://twitter.com/passy and https://mastodon.social/@passy ). Fancy working with us? Check out https://www.metacareers.com/ . Links: Reducing Instagram’s basic video compute time by 94 percent - Meta Engineering Blog: https://engineering.fb.com/2022/11/04/video-engineering/instagram-video-processing-encoding-reduction/ The Diff: https://thediffpodcast.com/ Unix Signals in Production - Dangers and Pitfalls: https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2022/09/27/signals-in-prod-dangers-and-pitfalls/ Introducing Velox: An open source unified execution engine - https://engineering.fb.com/2022/08/31/open-source/velox/ Timestamps: Intro 0:06 Intro Ryan 1:40 Transcoding Video at Instagram 2:52 Codecs and Tradeoffs 5:33 Client Support 7:13 Where did the compute go? 9:15 ABR 10:59 Progressive/Non-ABR Encodings 12:31 Saving Encoding Time 13:10 Testing the Changes 17:39 Results 26:43 Popularity Predictions 28:32 Outro 36:31…

Meta Tech Podcast

1
47: Sapling - A scalable, user-friendly source control system 40:46

2 years ago40:46