LinkedIn Lite: A Lightweight Mobile Web Experience
Article Summary
LinkedIn shipped a 75KB mobile experience that loaded in under 6 seconds on 100 Kbps connections. Six engineers built it in four months.
LinkedIn's engineering team rebuilt their mobile web experience for India, their second-largest market with 47 million members. Facing 5.6 second time-to-first-byte and 500KB+ JavaScript bundles, they needed a radically lighter approach.
Key Takeaways
- Server-side rendering with Play framework, capping JavaScript under 90 KB total
- Eliminated 2-4 redirects that consumed 3.7 seconds on slow connections
- Used Fetch API for interactions, streaming HTML instead of client-side templating
- 4x increase in job applications, 2x sessions, 3x overall engagement post-launch
Critical Insight
By shipping 85% less JavaScript and eliminating redirects, LinkedIn India saw 4x more job applications and 3x member engagement.
