Coding labour, in the realm of platforms, is an everyday process that extends beyond algorithmic management of work, and involves the moral, cultural, gendered and regulatory coding of labour. I ask the question: How do the everyday coding practices of platform developers shape the livelihood of platform labour, and what does it tell us about the politics of production in the platform economy? Through ethnographic fieldwork in Mobi, a ride-hailing platform based in Bengaluru, India, I investigate how the developers of the platform govern the working conditions of app-based drivers. Data was collected over the course of a year, from April 2023 to March 2024 through participant observation in Mobi. It included access to Mobi’s internal meetings, official documents, and Slack conversations. I conducted over 80 interviews across the hierarchy, from software developers and product managers, to executives and the founder of Mobi. The fieldwork also incorporated the perspectives of drivers including women drivers, and union leaders to understand the lived experiences of platform work. Through the dissertation, I contribute to the scholarship on the anthropology of labour and technology studies, and argue that platforms are not mere software service providers, but sites of production where developers integrate their own values into the algorithmic systems shaping labour and the politics of production in the platform economy.
