Love at First Site: Software Engineer Finds His Match in Online Dating Industry

Jordan Guggenheim never imagined his career would lead him to playing cupid, but that‘s exactly what happened when he landed his dream job as an engineering manager at the popular dating app OkCupid. With a background in finance, Guggenheim realized he craved a career that would allow him to tap into his creative side while also contributing something meaningful to society.

Determined to make a change, Guggenheim enrolled in an immersive software engineering program at Programming School. There, he discovered a passion for coding and got a glimpse of how technology could be leveraged to bring people together. For one class project, he poured his energy into developing an imaginative weather app interface, complete with raining cats and dogs to alert users to pack an umbrella.

Guggenheim‘s creativity and dedication caught the attention of recruiters at OkCupid, and he was offered a job as a software engineer before he even graduated from Programming School. "I knew right away that OkCupid was where I belonged," Guggenheim said. "The company has such a positive mission, and I loved the idea of being part of a close-knit team where everyone‘s voice matters."

Now several years into his role as engineering manager, Guggenheim has played an integral part in shaping OkCupid‘s platform and unique culture. Beyond just writing code, he and his fellow engineers serve as in-house dating experts, regularly discussing relationship trends and brainstorming ways to improve the user experience.

"We put a lot of thought into the questions and prompts we present to our users," Guggenheim explained. "In recent years, we‘ve noticed that shared political views have become increasingly important to daters. So we‘ve launched new features that allow people to filter matches based on things like voting habits and stances on social issues."

When asked what guidance he‘d give to online daters, Guggenheim emphasized the importance of keeping an open mind and taking the time to really get to know your matches. "Don‘t be too quick to judge based on an initial impression," he advised. "Ask meaningful questions, tell your story, and give connections a chance to develop."

Under the Hood: The Tech Powering Online Dating

For software engineers, the online dating industry offers a unique chance to apply their skills to a domain rife with interesting challenges. At a high level, dating apps rely on sophisticated recommendation engines to connect compatible users. But under the hood, there‘s a complex ecosystem of interconnected systems and technologies powering the platforms.

At the core of any dating app is a stack of web services and APIs that enable communication between the frontend user interface and various backend databases and third-party integrations. Engineers must carefully architect these systems for scalability and performance to ensure a seamless experience for users, even as traffic surges around peak times like holidays or major feature launches.

Mobile app development is another critical piece of the puzzle, as a growing share of daters access services primarily through their phones. iOS and Android developers use frameworks like React Native and Kotlin to build performant, user-friendly apps that can handle the real-time messaging, photo uploading, and location-based features that users expect.

But perhaps the most fascinating technical challenge in the online dating world is the art and science of matchmaking itself. Dating platforms lean heavily on recommendation algorithms to surface potential matches to users based on stated preferences, behavioral data, and increasingly, machine learning models.

"Developing algorithms that can effectively predict compatibility between two people is an incredibly complex undertaking," said Dr. Steve Carter, director of matching at eharmony. "We‘re essentially trying to decode the mysteries of attraction and emotion using mathematics, while also accounting for the great diversity of our users and their evolving desires."

Indeed, recommendation systems for dating apps must contend with a number of variables that general purpose engines don‘t, like the importance of attractiveness, the asymmetry between men‘s and women‘s preferences, and the need to avoid inappropriate or undesirable matches. Data scientists and engineers use techniques like natural language processing, image recognition, collaborative filtering, and deep learning to continually refine these algorithms.

At OkCupid, Guggenheim and his team recently rolled out a feature called Discovery that leverages machine learning to surface matches based on a holistic assessment of compatibility across hundreds of datapoints. "We trained our models on millions of successful conversations to essentially learn what leads to meaningful connections," he explained. "It‘s still early, but we‘ve seen a significant lift in engagement from Discovery."

Hinge takes a slightly different approach to recommendations, employing a Nobel Prize-winning algorithm called the Gale-Shapley algorithm to generate potential matches. "It‘s a bit like a favorite for solving the ‘stable marriage‘ problem in game theory," said Tim MacGougan, Chief Product Officer at Hinge. "But we‘ve adapted it to consider a user‘s preferences and also their ‘desirability‘ based on how often they‘ve been liked by other users."

As online dating companies continue to invest heavily in R&D to hone these algorithms, some experts warn that there may be a ceiling to how much science can be applied to the necessarily analog world of love and attraction. "At the end of the day, there‘s always going to be a certain amount of randomness and serendipity to finding a match," said Guggenheim. "Our job as engineers is to create more opportunities for that magic to happen, not to try and engineer love itself."

A Booming Market for Engineers

Source: Pew Research Center

There‘s no question that online dating has quickly become one of the primary ways people meet romantic partners, especially for younger generations. According to the Pew Research Center, 48% of 18-29 year olds in the U.S. say they have used a dating site or app, and 12% have married or entered a committed relationship with someone they first met through online dating.

This massive consumer demand has fueled a thriving market for online dating services worldwide. The market research firm Grand View Research estimates that the global online dating market size was valued at $7.5 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $11 billion by 2028, representing a compound annual growth rate of 5.5%.

For software engineers and developers, that growth translates into a wealth of opportunities across a spectrum of roles and specialties. Dating companies are in fierce competition for engineering talent and offer some of the most attractive compensation packages and benefits in the tech industry.

According to data from levels.fyi, an anonymized platform for tech salary comparisons, the average total annual compensation for software engineers at Tinder is $202,000, with some senior positions commanding upwards of $400,000. At Bumble, software engineers earn an average of $130,000 per year, while data scientists can expect to make around $150,000.

Beyond the financial incentives, many technologists are drawn to the online dating industry for the chance to work on products that have a profound real-world impact. "I get to go to work every day knowing that the code I write is helping people find love, start families, and make meaningful connections," said Kelsey Taylor, a software engineer at Match.com. "That‘s a pretty powerful motivator."

Others relish the deep technical challenges and creative problem-solving opportunities the domain presents. "From a pure engineering perspective, building a high-quality dating app is about as complex as it gets," said Tom Jacques, VP of Engineering at OkCupid. "You have all the usual challenges of developing a consumer-facing app, layered with the unique difficulties of real-time communication, rich media, and of course, the unpredictability of user behavior and psychology."

For engineers who want to make their mark on a product that gets used by millions of people every day, the dating app space is a natural fit. "There‘s an immediate gratification to shipping a new feature and then hearing from friends and family how it‘s affecting their dating lives," said Guggenheim. "As an engineer, you don‘t often get that level of tangible impact and feedback."

Cracking the Code

So what does it take to land an engineering job at a dating company? While the specifics will vary based on the role, hiring managers generally look for strong fundamentals in areas like computer science, web development, mobile engineering, and data structures and algorithms.

"We‘re language agnostic, so we don‘t require expertise in any particular programming language upfront," said Jess Chen, a recruiter at Hinge. "But we do look for engineers who can think and code at a high level and pick up new technologies quickly."

Many companies also place a premium on prior experience with the specific stack of tools and frameworks they use in-house. At OkCupid, for example, the backend is primarily built on Python, with Django as the web framework and Postgres for the database. The frontend relies heavily on React and Redux.

"For a full-stack role, we‘d definitely be looking for someone with professional experience in at least a few of those areas," said Guggenheim. "But even for more specialized positions, familiarity with our core technologies is a big plus."

Across the industry, there‘s a consensus that the soft skills of communication, collaboration, and creative problem-solving are just as critical as raw technical chops.

"Dating apps live and die by the quality of the user experience, so we look for engineers who can really put themselves in the user‘s shoes and always be thinking about how to create a better product," said Alex Williamson, Chief Brand Officer at Bumble. "The best engineers are the ones who can work cross-functionally, take feedback to heart, and balance creativity with analytical rigor."

For technologists with an entrepreneurial streak, there are even opportunities to get into the dating app game as a founder. Whitney Wolfe Herd famously left Tinder to start Bumble in 2014 and became the world‘s youngest female billionaire when she took the company public last year.

"The great thing about the dating industry is that there‘s always room for innovation and new ideas," said Wolfe Herd. "If you have a unique perspective on how people should meet or a creative solution to a problem daters face, there‘s a massive market opportunity waiting to be seized."

Looking Ahead

As dating apps become more ingrained in modern social life, engineers will play an increasingly vital role in shaping how people connect and fall in love. And as emerging technologies continue to evolve, there‘s no shortage of exciting developments on the horizon.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning will likely become even more central to the online dating experience in the coming years. Dating platforms are already using AI for everything from improving recommendations to rooting out fraud and inappropriate behavior. As algorithms become more sophisticated, they may be able to factor in even more data points like facial expressions, tone of voice, and body language to evaluate compatibility.

Virtual and augmented reality could also start to creep into the dating app interface, as companies explore new ways to create immersive experiences for users. Tinder recently launched an interactive video series called "Swipe Night" in which users can make decisions for characters in a choose-your-own-adventure style narrative.

"We‘re just beginning to scratch the surface of how VR and AR can enhance the online dating process," said George Adamson, a tech lead at Tinder. "Imagine being able to meet a match for a virtual coffee date or collaborating on an AR art project together. The possibilities are endless."

But even as dating apps become more advanced and feature-rich, their success will still hinge on the fundamentals of user experience, product design, and thoughtful engineering.

"At the end of the day, dating is one of the most human things we do, and there‘s no algorithm that can perfectly capture the nuances and complexities of attraction," said Guggenheim. "But by combining the power of technology with empathetic, user-centric design, we can give people the tools to find the right match in their own way and on their own terms."

For software engineers like Guggenheim who have found their calling in the online dating industry, the future is bright—and it‘s never been a more exciting time to be in the business of love. By harnessing their skills and creativity, they have the power to help millions of people forge meaningful connections, one swipe at a time.

"As far as dream jobs go, this is pretty hard to beat," said Guggenheim. "I get to work alongside brilliant colleagues, solve interesting technical problems, and make a real impact in people‘s lives every day. What more could an engineer ask for?"