Battling with Tech Giants for the World's Best Talent

Summary

Grab maintains research and development centres across Singapore, Seattle, and Beijing to develop mobility and transaction platforms for Southeast Asia. Engineer Brandon Gao turned down an offer from a major Seattle-based technology corporation to remain at the company due to rapid growth and high engineering impact. During backend infrastructure changes starting in May 2015, Grab transitioned core services from Node.js and Ruby to Golang. A weekend Golang prototype created by Gao evolved into the primary data service linking backend servers to 580,000 drivers across the region. Additionally, his initial work on the User Trust team established a machine-learning risk and fraud detection system supporting large-scale mobile transaction volumes.

Context

Retaining specialized engineering talent against competing offers from established global tech giants while scaling Southeast Asian mobility systems.

Approach / What changed

Empowering engineers with high ownership on core infrastructure rewrites, machine learning projects, and direct-impact platform services.

Takeaways

• Grab began migrating its backend services from Node.js and Ruby to Golang in May 2015.
• A prototype rewritten in Golang over a weekend grew into the data service directly connecting Grab servers to 580,000 drivers across Southeast Asia by January 2017.
• Grab's User Trust team implemented a risk and fraud detection system leveraging big data and machine learning to manage regional mobile transaction volumes.

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