A Tale of
Search and Culture
Who am I?
Tim Carry
Developer Advocate
@pixelastic
Algolia: Search as a Service
Developer eXperience (DX)
API Clients & Plugins
PHP
Ruby
JavaScript
Python
iOS
Android
Java
Go
Scala
Rails
Symfony
Laravel
Algolia in 3 steps
Live demo
Live
demo
Search into all the
superheroes
~1500 files
./records
├──
8-Ball.json
├──
Abdul_Alhazred.json
├──
Abigail_Brand.json
├──
[…]
├──
Zombie.json
├──
Zom.json
└──
Zzzax.json
{
 "name": "Iron Man",
 "secretIdentity": "Tony Stark",
 "description": "Wounded, captured and forced to […]",
 "powers": ["Energy repulsors", […], "Super strength"],
 "teams": ["Avengers", […], "Stark Industries"],
 "adventureCount": 2903
 […]
}
Dashboard or API
All actions
are doable either
through
the dashboard
or
the API
Pushing data with Ruby
require 'algoliasearch'
# Init Algolia index
Algolia.init(
 application_id: 'O3F8QXYK6R', 
 api_key: '476071478e45b023b7ff7d8ba8'
)
index = Algolia::Index.new('marvel')
# Read files from disk
records = Dir.glob("./records/*.json").map { |file| JSON.parse(File.read(file)) }
# Push records to index
records.each_slice(500) do |batch|
 index.add_objects!(batch.to_a)
end
Testing your queries in the explorer
Configuring your index
Fields to search
Order of importance
Ranking attribute
Filters
More...
index.set_settings!(
 searchableAttributes: [
    'name', 
    'secretIdentity',
    'description'
 ],
 customRanking: [
  'desc(adventureCount)'
 ],
 attributesForFaceting: [
  'powers', 
  'team'
 ]
)
Now with better relevance
Common components of a search UI
Searchbar
Results
Sort
Filters
Slider
Toggle
InstantSearch
Library of search UI
widgets
"Serverless"?
APIs as building blocks
Each block
solves
a specific problem
Current ecosystem
Payment
Images
Hosting
Search
Messages
Notifications
Authentication
My Algolia
in 2015
People
13 employees
Offices in Paris and San Francisco
400+ customers
Infrastructure
2 Billion API calls / month
100 servers
4 datacenters in 4 regions
in 2015
People
13 employees
Offices in Paris and San Francisco…
400+ customers
Infrastructure
2 Billion API calls / month
100+ servers
4 datacenters in 4 regions
in 2017
130+
employees
…and NYC, Atlanta and London
3000+
customers
Infrastructure
30 Billion
API calls / month
1000+
servers
52
datacenters in
14
regions
5 timezones, 2 continents, 1 company
Company-wide call every week
Live camera between offices
3 weeks stay in Paris
Yearly flight to other offices
All-Hands in Paris
Algolive
Lunch by the Seine
In-N-Out Burger in San Francisco
Talented people come from everywhere
Help them relocate
Speak one language
New people, new jobs
2 new people every week
New job titles:
Solution Engineer
Technical Writer
Developer Advocate
Account Executive
Brand Director
SRE, CSM, OSR MM
New people, new jobs
2 new people every week
New job titles:
Solution Engineer
Account Executive
Technical Writer
Brand Director
Developer Advocate
SRE, AE, OSDR MM
Shared lunch
Slack Bot
Team offsite
Company offsite
Your culture is shaped by
all the people
that are in your company at
any given time
It
will
change.
Embrace it.
Forget about
culture fit
Define
your
values
Our values
Trust
Care
Grit
Humility
Candor
Combining values
Grit
+
Trust
=
Ownership
Trust
+
Candor
=
Transparency
Candor
+
Care
=
Feedback
A Tale of Search and Culture
Tim Carry
@pixelastic
A Tale of Search and Culture
Tim Carry
@pixelastic