ITWeb took a tour of Instagram's new dedicated space in Facebook's New York City offices to give readers a look behind the curtain.
In June, the picture-sharing social media platform opened new offices in New York City to give its rapidly expanding engineering team a space to call their own.
Two years ago, there were 40 Instagram employees working in New York, operating out of Facebook's offices. Facebook had commandeered four floors in a popular 15-storey office building on Broadway Avenue.
The team grew very quickly, and by the beginning of 2018, there were 300 Instagram-only employees in the city, prompting the company to create its own space, in the same building, but with its own identity and designed to inspire creativity.
Ashley Chapman, part of the Instagram communications team who showed ITWeb around, said the change in workers' attitudes was instant.
"You could feel the difference in people when we moved in. The large pictures on the walls from community members remind you why you are here and keep you focused."
Chapman says the other reason for the dedicated space was: "We were growing so quickly and wanted to really invest in New York and show our commitment to it. It is such a hotbed of design and art and fashion, and it was important to have a space that was reflective of that."
The building was originally the Wannamaker department store and the 14th floor, where Instagram is situated, was the store's nearly 24 500-metre-square showroom.
It therefore has large floor-to-ceiling windows that adorn every edge of the open-plan room, allowing masses of natural light to flow in and creating an airy, spacious feel.
Chapman says the design of the building was developed by Kitty Bromhead, Instagram New York culture lead, together with the in-house design team.
"When choosing materials, colours and finishes, Instagram wanted them to be reflective of the city surroundings, with a focus on craft, creativity and simplicity.
"We wanted to create a space that was focused on form and usability versus a concept that was over-designed. The core principles were to keep it minimal, fun and collaborative, reflective of our brand and platform."
Earlier this year, Instagram reached over a billion users. The New York offices will house a third of the platform's engineers by the end of the year. Its news, fashion, design, music and shopping teams are all also based there.
Chapman says Instagram has made New York its second major hub, with core products, including Stories, Shopping, Feed, Search and Explore, being built there.
The community team is also based in the New York office, and their job is to follow hashtags and help surface trends on the platform before they become huge. Chapman says they noticed ASMR videos were gaining significant traction before they became the phenomenon they are at the moment.
One of the ways this is tracked is by watching how quickly like accounts gain multiple followers in a short space of time.
Every Friday, all Instagram employees gather in the main conference room to dial into a conference with co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger.
Chapman says different teams from Instagram give short presentations to show new features they have been working on and then the co-founders talk about what has been happening in the business that week.
Employees, from multiple remote locations, are given the chance to ask any hard-hitting questions. Chapman says it is amazing to have this type of access to the co-founders as it fosters understanding, transparency and loyalty.
When the office was being designed, a Facebook group was created for all employees to join and vote on features. Instagram emphasised that employee contribution was important as they were the people who would be using the space.
Chapman says there is a heavy feedback culture, and all names of the multiple video-conferencing rooms and themes for certain spaces were voted on.
The common spaces of the office include a bar, called the Thirsty Flamingo, and a gelato and juice bar, called the Frozen Palm.
Every Thursday, there is a happy hour at the Thirsty Flamingo, where employees are encouraged to mingle with people outside of their normal functions.
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