Born out of necessity, Python was created by programming experts who wanted to get their own programming work done more efficiently. Python is incredibly fast, keeping up with the demand of the mobile population, and is also surprisingly efficient for an interpretative language. When you work with huge amounts of information, for example, that information is sorted into lists. And as you can imagine, as the data grows, so do the lists. Python ingeniously loads those lists only when necessary, reducing processing time. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

At Cre8tive, we recognize the unmatched power and proficiency of Python, and we use it within our technology stacks for its scalability and behavior. Python drives our ability to bring our clients’ websites to market in record time, enhances user experience, and most importantly, gives our team more freedom to be creative for our clients, rather than bogged down with tedious code.

Companies Where Python Shines

Python has revolutionized our process at Cre8tive, and the following eight amazing companies have selected it as well, likely for the same reasons:

Uber

Building upon its revolutionary mobile app for ride-sharing services, Uber Inc. just launched a complete fleet of self-driving cars and has reached exemplar status for employing the most cutting-edge technologies available. Their code is no less advanced.

Ryan McKillen, Software Engineer at Uber Inc., and Bradley Voytek, former Data Scientist at Uber Inc., explained that the company writes significant amounts of JavaScript and Python code. Their real-time/dispatch systems are built on Node.js and Redis, while all business logic lives on an API built in Python, MySQL, and Mongo. Furthermore, because the business dictates a significant amount of precise math and science for pricing and ETAs, demand and supply prediction is also done in Python.  

Uber has chosen to commit business-critical information to the Python language presumably due to the language’s ability to process complex code quickly and efficiently.

Netflix

After finding success in the “DVD by mail” business, Netflix solidified its place in the entertainment industry by providing the most popular Internet video streaming service in North America, even creating its own original content.

With such success, engineers at Netflix have the liberty to work with the best technologies on the market today. More and more Netflix developers are turning to Python over any other technology due to its clean and defined syntax, large developer community, and abundance of third-party libraries , which help them identify and solve unique challenges. The use of Python by Netflix can be found in every business process, from storing information with python-memcached and pycassa to crunching data with SciPy.

Instagram

Since launch, the Instagram social network for photo and video sharing has pushed the boundaries of a simple social concept by stretching the capabilities of online technology.

The Instagram platform represents the largest deployment in existence of the Django web framework, written entirely in Python. Instagram has revealed that they “initially chose to use Python due to its reputation for simplicity and practicality, which aligns well with our philosophy of do the simple thing first.” 

As the number of Instagram users increases exponentially, the company has a strong need to prioritize web service efficiency. Thanks to Python and additional tools that Instagram developers built, the company can continue to successfully and reliably provide their photo-sharing medium that social media users have come to love.

PayPal and eBay

Although PayPal and eBay now operate as separate companies, their conjoined past represents one of the greatest accomplishments in the history of online business. Today, eBay’s online marketplace and PayPal’s online payment system continue to push technological boundaries.

PayPal engages multiple languages in its programming culture: C++, Java, Scala, and now, Python. The popularity of Python with PayPal developers resulted from an osmosis process due to PayPal’s tight collaboration with eBay, a longtime champion of the Python language. 

Even before it was given official support from eBay management, Python found its way within the walls of eBay through grassroots usage.  Today, Python powers more than 50 eBay projects, including batch jobs for data import, price adjustments, and even security-use cases, among many others.

Google

Now housed under its parent company, Alphabet, the company behind the world’s most powerful web search engine undoubtedly uses only the best of every best there is, including the most agile in programming languages.

Python is recognized as the official language at Google and has been the foundation for development since the company’s inception. “Python has been an important part of Google since the beginning, and remains so as the system grows and evolves. Today dozens of Google engineers use Python, and we're looking for more people with skills in this language,” said Peter Norvig, Director of Search Quality at Google, Inc. Google has such a strong affinity for the language that it sponsors Python conferences such as PyCon, EuroPython, and more.

Python can be found in every cornerstone of Google’s identity. It is the language that Google App Engine was initially designed for. The entire YouTube site also uses Python in a multitude of ways, including playing videos, controlling templates for the website, administering videos, and more. Additionally, the Google AdWords API Python Client Library makes it easier to write Python and programmatically access AdWords accounts. Developers also use the language in their system administration tools to generate reports and log analysis, for example. Python continues to be widely used at Google due to its flexibility, scalability, and ease of use.

Zillow

With millions of online real estate listings, Zillow is one of the leading Internet marketplaces for selling, buying, and renting homes. As such, the company relies on advanced web development to remain successful.

Zillow has disclosed that they actively use Python because “for the same amount of end result, the code written in Python is roughly 1/3 of its counterpart in Java and thus the time taken to code it. Now we have now a language which can save us the rarest and most important commodity we have in industry, the developer's time. That, my friend, pushes a lot of start-ups to look towards Python when they have to get their product out quickly in the market to have competitive edge.”

Spotify

The wildly popular online music streaming platform named Spotify would be nothing without its back end to keep the tunes flowing, the content library accessible, and the paid component attractive. That’s why Spotify developers use Python.

While standard procedure calls for Python to be used in Spotify’s backend services and data analysis, the company’s developers are so keen to program in Python that the language consistently shows up in various other areas.

Spotify said:

“Speed is a big focus for Spotify. Python fits well into this mindset, as it gets us big wins in speed of development. Some services are compute bound, and we’ve tried a range of strategies for how to handle this in Python. This has included performance testing, profiling, cython, and native libraries.”

As Python’s Influence Grows…

It’s safe to say that every online user engages with Python-rich content whether they know it or not. And with a growing mindshare of Python among developers, the question isn’t whether to use Python, it’s how we might wield the power of Python for the next big thing!