Building Better Products at Scale: Lessons from Reddit’s Search Product Manager

Join us for an insightful conversation with Rachel Miller, Product Manager for Search Experiences at Reddit, as she shares hard-won lessons from nearly five years of building and scaling one of the internet’s most complex search products.

In this fireside chat, Rachel pulls back the curtain on what it really takes to build products for millions of users, from prioritizing an endless stream of ideas with limited resources to navigating the challenges of AI integration without losing sight of the user problems you’re actually trying to solve.

What You’ll Learn:

• How to balance user feedback, company strategy, and data analysis when prioritizing what to build next
• Practical approaches to managing dependencies and communication across teams before issues arise during execution
• Framework for deciding when (and when not) to use AI in your products, including how to work effectively with ML engineers
• Methods for validating user experience early—from prototype testing to internal playtesting—before committing engineering resources
• Ways to gather and interpret community feedback while understanding the bias of vocal users
• Strategies for maintaining alignment with company goals while staying flexible as priorities shift

Key Takeaways

• Start with the problem, not the solution: Before deciding whether to implement AI or any other technology, understand the user problem you’re trying to solve. The decision of what to build should come from the problem itself, not from chasing the latest capabilities.
• Communication and lead time prevent execution chaos: Issues emerge during project execution when edge cases weren’t considered and stakeholders weren’t notified early enough. Getting lead time to plan and communicate clearly about dependencies, timelines, and resources stops problems before they start.
• Validate experience before engineering builds: Use designer-led prototypes and user research programs to test early concepts with users. Internal playtesting can catch issues before launch, ensuring you’re building something that actually works for users.
• Three perspectives tell the full story: Vocal community members don’t represent your entire user base. Balance feedback from subreddits and community channels with formalized user research and hard event metrics to see what users actually do versus what they say they want.
• Ethical considerations belong at the beginning: We have both privilege and responsibility in building technology that shapes the future. Think about vulnerability risks, potential for bias, and inclusivity when you’re figuring out user understanding and picking models—not after the product is already built.

Reference

• Reddit
• Taimaka