In the past, each LinkedIn application team decided their notification strategy in isolation. Business logic and infrastructure sharing were limited between the teams. This resulted in a fragmented and inconsistent tech stack across LinkedIn and a less than savory member notification experience.

To combat this disjointed experience, Linkedin set up a small team to build an orchestration layer, the Air-Traffic Controller (ATC). This became one of the more complex notification systems and helped Linkedin grow into the top social platform for business and networking.

We have invited Sandor Nyako, Director of Software Engineering at Linkedin, to discuss what it was like scaling out from owning the ATC system to build the Comms Platform organization, and what recommendations he has for teams thinking about the future of this new form of user experience.

0:01 Intros
1:47 LinkedIn's Air Traffic Controller origin story
3:09 1st Layer of Optimization - Offline Batch - Volume/Cost Optimization Model
5:00 Mobile and Multi-channel strategy
6:45 Introduce Air Traffic Controller - The Orchestration Layer
7:55 How was this architecture distributed across the organization?
9:38 Notification Types and Campaigns - Growth and Engagement
11:52 Transactional Notifications
13:30 Multi-channel notifications at LinkedIn
17:14 Does LinkedIn use multiple providers for failover, reputation?
18:52 What is Air Traffic Controller Actually Doing? Artificial Intelligence?!?
21:59 Implementing user guard rails
24:53 User preferences management
26:40 Current Air Traffic Controller architecture
29:32 How does ATC prioritize channels?
31:55 Who in the organization interacts with ATC?
34:30 The 5 R's of Notification Delivery
41:24 How big is the Notify organization?
43:34 Cutting user complaints, increase engagement - Adding governance is a big step function
49:14 What type of employee is The Communications Team currently looking for?
50:55 Last thoughts Sandor?

https://engineering.linkedin.com/blog/2018/03/air-traffic-controller--member-first-notifications-at-linkedin

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