Meta Engineers Detail Machine Learning Behind Reel Friends Feature
Meta's Reel Friends feature, which surfaces Reels that friends have watched and reacted to, required extensive engineering work despite its simple appearance. On the Meta Tech Podcast, host Pascal Hartig spoke with software engineers Subasree and Joseph from the Facebook Reels team about the development process. They discussed the evolution of the machine learning model powering the feature, differences in user behavior between iOS and Android, and a surprising discovery that made the feature work. The episode is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Pocket Casts.
Key facts
- Reel Friends highlights Reels that friends have watched and reacted to.
- The feature required deep engineering work despite its simple appearance.
- Pascal Hartig hosted the episode of the Meta Tech Podcast.
- Subasree and Joseph are software engineers on the Facebook Reels team.
- The discussion covered the evolution of the machine learning model.
- Differences in behavior between iOS and Android users were noted.
- A surprising discovery made the feature click.
- The episode is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Pocket Casts.
Entities
Institutions
- Meta
- Meta Tech Podcast