Yelp Official Blog

Day in the Life of a Yelp Engineer

We recently did a blog post about the many job openings at Yelp. At the end, we promised that we would pull back the covers on what it's like to work at Yelp as told by some of the employees that make our company rock. Over the next few weeks, we'll be featuring several of our brightest talking about what they do day in and day out to give all you potential Yelp-loyees more insight into why Yelp is the ONLY place you'd want to work!

Kicking off the series is Jason F. of the engineering team. A master multi-tasker based in Yelp's San Francisco Headquarters, Jason explains what it's like to have a hand in solving some of Yelp's coolest problems, the 3 Ps and of course, how he manages to juggle whilst riding a unicycle.

His super powers must have something to do with the kegerator.

What did you do before coming to Yelp?
Before Yelp, I was a student at Harvey Mudd College.  I graduated Spring of '08 then took about 6 months to drive around the country site-seeing and staying with friends.  After 11,000 miles and most major US cities, I moved in with some friends in Menlo Park and started looking for a job.

How did you first hear about Yelp and the job opening?
I originally heard about Yelp from a friend who lives in San Francisco. Something along the lines of "This site is amazing!  I use it for everything!"  I didn't think too much more of it until browsing job listings and saw one listed from Yelp on Craigslist. I checked it out based on his recommendation and the rest, as they say, is history.

What's your title at Yelp and how long have you been with the company?
I am a Search and Data Mining Engineer and have been with Yelp for nearly a year (I started November 4th, 2008).

What comprises a typical day for you?
Some days I spend my time digging through analytics data and discussing ideas with the rest of the search team as well as brainstorming new features for Yelp.  Other times I will sit down and rip out one of those features.  Maybe I'll spend some time making our search infrastructure more bulletproof.  Every day holds new and exciting challenges!  Oh, and how could I forget... juggling breaks!

What's the BEST part of working for Yelp?
The 3 Ps: Product, problems and people.  We have a great product with millions of happy users; a *ton* of really cool problems that need to be solved and a great group of people working together to solve them.

What is your favorite perk at Yelp?
Darwin (Jeremy's dog) in the office and the kegerator on every floor of the building.

What has been your favorite memory at Yelp?
Releasing Search Suggest to production.  It improved the Yelp search experience for millions of people.  That was months ago and I still have friends come up to tell me how much they like the feature. Working hard to create a product that is really spiffy and useful at a large scale is an amazing feeling.

Also, swinging upside-down on a flying trapeze during a recent Yelp off-site was a pretty high point! (pun intended)

What separates Yelp from other places you've worked?
Most of the job experience I have was from a research-centered environment.  While I do enjoy research, there is something fundamentally different about having a large group of people all focused on one goal of giving the users of Yelp the best possible experience they can have.  It brings together the team and grants a clarity of vision that I hadn't previously experienced.

Last, but not least, what would be your one piece of advice for someone interested in your role?
Build something you're passionate about and know every detail of it from the high-level algorithms down to the bits and bytes.  If the thing you happen to build is related to search or data-mining, even better!

Yelp helps Chicago non-profits

What makes Yelp different from other review sites out there? It's the community. A community of passionate locals who strongly believe in supporting local businesses and organizations in their city.

So it wasn't surprising to hear that more than 500 Yelpers came out for the "Yelp.Community: Causes for a Party" in Chicago last week. Thirty-five of Chicago's most interesting non-profit and charitable organizations mingled with civic-minded Yelpers who were eager to learn about how to get involved.

Most impressive was the fact that the majority of Yelpers were interested in multiple causes resulting in roughly 1,500 new sign ups for our participating organizations.

We'd like to give a big thanks to Elliott and his team over at See3 Communications for producing this great video.

You've Come a Long Way, Yokel, er Yelp

One of the questions that Jeremy and I get asked the most often is "How did you come up with the idea for Yelp?"

And the second: "How did you come up with that name?"

Today, Newsweek published a video and interview of us explaining how the idea for Yelp was formed, why our initial concept flopped and of course, where the heck the name came from (and why we're thankful that Jeremy didn't have his way in that department).

It's been a long journey over the course of the past 5 years and along with drum sets in our first office to internal doggie politics between Darwin and Uma, we've also built a site and a company that is truly passionate about creating an impactful way to connect community and local businesses. We hope you enjoy our story (and a cameo of the original website before the yelp burst!)

My, you are looking HAWT on Yelp!

Let's face it, during the winter months, it's hard to feel good about yourself. You're likely wearing long underwear, two pairs of socks, and stuffing your face with carbs to fend off the cold (or maybe that's just me?). Your skin's also probably chapped and a tad bit pale, and your muscles might be a little bit tense from trying to balance yourself as you totter down the icy streets.

Well, sleet, snow or palm trees (no fair, San Diego) it's time to feel HAWT again!

From November 2nd - 8th, Yelp is hosting Hawt on Yelp! With over 140 participating spas and salons throughout 14 cities in the U.S, Yelpers will enjoy 50% off services that week when booking their appointment. These include anything from massages, facials, haircuts, waxing, nails and more and is a great way to pamper yourself, even if you're running low on cash.

How can you get in on the deals? Easy. Just check out the event listing in Yelp cities Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, Orange County, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego or Washington DC to see which businesses are throwing down the discounts. Mention "Hawt on Yelp" when booking and presto! You're on your way to looking even more fabulous whether you're treating yourself, family or friends all whilst supporting great local businesses.

Because these deals will go fast, there are no walk-ins. So what are you waiting for? We'd start booking!

So You Wanna Work For Yelp?

Good, because we're hiring.

Imagine this: Office dog digging through your trash can, Lagunitas IPA on tap, Sarah Michelle Gellar greeting you with a smile every morning, Ping Pong battles, semi-automatic Nerf guns, 24 flavors of Odwalla juice, organic fruit, not so organic junk food, off-sites that involve lederhosen, PS3 tournaments, gold plated toilet seats, and some of the coolest colleagues you'll ever work with. (OK we kid about the gold plated toilet seats - someone stole ours.)

Did we also mention that in a year, our traffic has grown by over 90% with more than 25 million people visiting the site in August alone and in that same time, our team has increased by nearly 70%, expanding to almost 300 employees worldwide?! Um, yea.

That means we need even more smart, capable and passionate people to join our team; not only to help keep us at the top of our game, but also bring that innovation and drive that is inherent to Yelp's growth. What are we looking for exactly? Tell us why you love Yelp and want to join our team. If you're already on Yelp, let us know by including your profile URL with your resume.



Additionally, over the coming weeks we'll also post profiles of a "Day in a Life" of a featured Yelp Employee. That way you can really get the inside scoop on why Yelp is such a great place to work! So what are you waiting for? Check out what positions are open and let's see if you have what it takes!

Why Yelp has a Review Filter

Here at Yelp, we're trying to connect people with great local businesses. Providing consumers with trusted review content is critical to this mission. One question we occasionally get asked on this topic is why reviews sometimes "disappear" from a business page. While the overwhelming majority of reviews aren't affected, we figured this might be a good time to offer some specifics on why reviews sometimes don't appear on business pages (and why we think this helps make Yelp the most useful consumer review site around).

Yelp has an automated Review Filter that many people are surprised to learn was put in place soon after our big launch in 2005. Of course, it's evolved over the years; it's an algorithm our engineers are constantly working on. Its purpose, however, remains the same: to protect consumers and business owners from fake, shill or malicious reviews.

Is this really an issue? It's said a picture is worth a thousand words, so....

That's a screen shot of an advertisement requesting fake reviews on Yelp. It's an attempt to manipulate the content that 25 million people relied on last month to find everything from a great restaurant to a trustworthy mechanic to a top-notch pediatrician.

This advertisement isn't a rarity. In fact, you'd be surprised how many of these we encounter. But, while most business owners focus on providing great service and let their business speak for itself, a very small percentage apparently would prefer to take a less than honest approach. That includes writing their own reviews, paying others to write reviews and, at times, even posting negative reviews on competitors' pages.

These types of practices aren't fair to consumers and they certainly aren't fair to other businesses. If they were allowed to occur, they would erode trust...which would reduce the usefulness of the site for both consumers and the good businesses that rely on the positive word-of-mouth they've earned. While Yelp relies heavily on our community members to catch shills and point out things that look suspicious, they can't be everywhere. (Though they're not shy if they find some.) That's why we believe our Review Filter makes Yelp stand apart from other review sites.

Is it a perfect system? No. Building a scalable, automated method to identify spurious reviews and protect the integrity of website content that includes more than 7 million reviews is difficult. Does legitimate review content sometimes get lost as a result? Yes. Our filter takes a conservative approach and errs on the side of protecting the consumer, when necessary. Customer reviews directly solicited by a business can fall into this category at times, which is why we caution against the practice. It's unfortunate, but this is what is required to maximize trustworthy content and provide value to consumers and businesses alike. And while we work to improve our system every day, we'd argue it's one of the more effective systems out there (if not the only).

The good news is Yelpers understand the challenge and appreciate the benefits. In a recent user survey we conducted, a whopping 94% of respondents said they turn to Yelp first to make a purchasing decision. Indeed, 80% noted it's because Yelp emphasizes reviews from trusted members of the community.

The goal of our community self-policing and automated review filtering is to make Yelp a trustworthy resource for connecting people with great local businesses. Some recent third-party data suggests we're heading in the right direction.

That said, we know our system's not perfect, and we always encourage feedback.

Update: Here's a video we made to help explain our review filter further.