Ryan Olson
Principal-level engineer (IC8) who led major iOS projects at Instagram including Stories and the Whiteout redesign, later co-founder of Retro, a friends-focused social app.
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Feb 2, 2026 • 1h 35min
Instagram Principal Eng (IC8) On Building IG Stories, 1 Promo Per Half, Small Teams
Ryan Olson, a principal iOS engineer who led Instagram Stories and later co-founded Retro, shares career-defining projects. He talks about building Stories with tiny teams, the Whiteout redesign, promotion paths at Instagram, IG Labs experiments, and choosing startup tradeoffs for product focus.
