In 2012, a group of Yahoo engineers in Bangalore created a meetup to share ideas, collaborate on solving problems, and learn from each other’s experiences. Throughout the year, this core team created a platform that not only brought their community together in one place, but also cemented Yahoo!’s thought leadership in the large-scale systems engineering community. Read on to learn more about Large-Scale Production Engineering India (LSPE-IN) and how the team is working to build our brand. 

LSPE-IN is a community of engineers who solve problems regarding large-scale Internet applications, and provide a platform where they can share their experiences. Providing such a platform also helps industry professionals share their experiences. New engineers in the field can go beyond just troubleshooting problems to actually solving intrinsic architectural issues.

A lot of startups and even new teams in existing companies in the field make the same architectural mistakes in the early phases of their product. Consequently, they learn the right approach to solving problems the hard way. We hope that a forum like LSPE- IN will raise community awareness, so that service can improve throughout the company and in the Internet space.

The meetup has resulted in repeat sign-ups. In fact, one of the recent events you hosted saw participation from across 32 different external organizations in Bangalore. Why has the meetup struck a chord with the community?

Quite a few participants we have spoken to mentioned that they gain new perspectives at each meetup. There are a wide variety of Internet services out there and subsequently a wide variety of problems to solve. Engineers working in a particular domain are naturally curious about how others solve challenges that arise in their respective domains. A lot of times, the solutions found by different teams can provide others with ideas to solve their own challenges. We think this curiosity brings engineers together in meetups like this.

Are there any specific successes you would like to share?

The case studies that we have been providing in the last two sessions have been a surprise hit. Most conferences are one-sided, with participants only listening and not participating. For the case studies, we asked all the participants to sit in informal teams and provide solutions based on group consensus. This brought engineers from different companies together to solve problems. It broke down intercompany barriers and encouraged engineers to truly work together as a community. Less-experienced engineers benefited from the perspective that more seasoned engineers bring to the table, making these sessions very unique.

Can you give us a sneak peek on the plans for next year and what the community will focus on?

Going forward, we might look into making some of our domains more focused, and incorporate "tracks" in the agenda. For example, we might have a database track for engineers focused on database scalability, or a security track which handles issues in large-scale systems.

Some of us are also interested in contributing to the challenges our government institutions face in order to improve the quality of public service. We had a talk in our last session by a representative from the Cloud Computing Innovation Council, which brings the tech industry, academia and government together. This got a great response, with several participants sending offline inquiries to the speaker about how they can help. We might have more talks along those lines.

Can you share some insight on how LSPE-IN helped build the Yahoo brand in India?

LSPE-IN has helped cement Yahoo!’s thought leadership in the large-scale systems engineering community in Bangalore. Over half of the talks at these meetups have been given by Yahoo engineers, and participants have appreciated the insights they got out of these meets.

Before such a platform existed, appreciation for Yahoo was mostly given at an informal level or through the media. By connecting the external community directly with engineers at Yahoo at these events, folks are realizing the unique challenges that Yahoo faces because of the scale it operates on. This helps them acknowledge our leadership in the field.

Feel free to join our group at http://www.meetup.com/lspe-in/ 

Check out photos from the event here and below: