TL;DR

Project: GETTR Vision Recommender System

Role: System architect, ML pipeline lead

Problem: Static, one-size-fits-all short video feed; no metadata, poor personalization

Solution:


In 2022, GETTR launched GETTR Vision—a short-form video feature built to ride the wave of TikTok-style content. It had the right ingredients: political voices, global creators, and viral potential. But we quickly hit a wall that every social video platform eventually faces:

People weren’t seeing videos they actually cared about.

The system was live. The content was growing. But user engagement plateaued. Retention started to slide. The problem? Recommendation.

Screenshot 2025-04-11 at 5.46.11 AM.png

The Problem: Everyone Saw the Same Videos

At launch, we took the pragmatic path: recommend based on recency, popularity, and watch time.

It was a basic heuristic system: