The People Behind Google Reader #
If Google Reader were a movie or TV show, at the end of the spectacle the credits would roll and you would get to see who was responsible for what you just saw. But in today's age, software "about box credits" are no longer common.
I thought it might be nice, for the sake of posterity, to list all those who worked on Reader over the years. There's been a lot of discussion about Reader's imminent shutdown, but most of it focused on Google (the corporate entity) and its strategy. However, at the end of the day, Reader was built by people. I and a few others have been lucky enough to be more visible, but everyone involved deserves credit and thanks. This is especially the case since as Chris and Brian have described, Reader faced quite a few internal struggles. As I remember it, nearly everyone on the Reader team explicitly requested to join it, and often had to fight to keep their role.
Coming up with this list was difficult, both technically (can you name all your coworkers going back 8 years?), and because it was tough to decide where to draw the line. Google is a big company, and many people in many supporting roles helped to Reader out. First, here's a list of all full-time Reader team members:
- Chris Wetherell (2005-2008): Software Engineer, now at Avocado.
- Jason Shellen (2005-2006): Product Manager, now at Boxer.
- Ben Darnell (2005-2009): Software Engineer, now at Viewfinder.
- Laurence Gonsalves (2005-2010): Software Engineer
- Steve Goldberg (2005-2011): Engineering Manager, still at Google
- Mihai Parparita (2005-2010): Software Engineer, now at Quip
- Kevin Fox (2005, 2006): User Experience Designer, now at Electric Imp.
- Misha Dynin (2006, 2009): Software Engineer, still at Google.
- Justin Haugh (2006-2008): Software Engineer, still at Google.
- Brad Hawkes (summer of 2006, 2007-2010): Software Engineer Intern, Software Engineer, still at Google.
- Nick Baum (2006-2007): Product Manager, now at StoryWorth.
- Dolapo Falola (20% in 2006, 2007-2009): Software Engineer, now eating yogurt and granola at Foursquare.
- Chrix Finne (2007-2008): Product Manager, now at Optimizely.
- Jenna Bilotta (2007-2010): User Experience Designer, now at Avocado.
- Shreyas Desai (2007-2008): Software Engineer in Test, now at Yahoo!.
- Susan Shepard (2007-2009): Software Engineer, still at Google.
- Gaurav Jain (2007-2009): Software Engineer, still at Google.
- Jason Hall (summer of 2007): Software Engineer Intern, still at Google.
- Nitin Shantharam (summer of 2007): Software Engineer Intern, now at Swapbox.
- Brian Shih (2008-2010): Product Manager, now at Pocket Gems.
- Mike Knapp (2008-2009): Software Engineer, now at Shoes of Prey
- Nick Santaniello (2008-2009): Product Support, now at Robysoft.
- Derek Snyder (2008-2009): Software Engineer, now at a as-of-yet-unnamed startup.
- Matt Steiner (2008-2009): Software Engineer, still at Google.
- Beverly Yang (2009-2010): Software Engineer, still at Google.
- Derek Mauro (2009-2010): Software Engineer, still at Google.
- Garrett Wu (2009-2010): Software Engineer, now at WibiData.
- Ye Zhou (2009-2010): Software Engineer, still at Google.
- Devin Kennedy (summer of 2009): Software Engineer Intern, still at Google.
- Arif Siddiquee (2009-2011): Software Engineer, still at Google.
- Alan Green (2011-2012): Software Engineer, still at Google.
- Mick Hollins (2011-2012): Software Engineer, still at Google.
Additionally, here's others who contributed to Reader in various roles at Google:
- Design: Micheal Lopez
- Executives: Greg Badros, Jeff Huber, Pavni Diwanji
- Legal: Halimah DeLaine
- Localization: Gabriella Laszlo, John Saito, Katsuhiko Momoi, Sasan Banava
- PR: Nate Tyler, Oscar Shine, Sonya Boralv
- Product Management: Bruce Polderman, Sabrina Ellis
- Product Marketing: Kevin Systrom, Louis Gray, Peter Harbison, Robby Stein, Tom Stocky, Zach Yeskel
- Quality Assurance: Amar Amte, Jan Carpenter, Kavitha Venkatesan, Madhuri Kulkarni, Thanh Le
- Site Reliability Engineering: Chen Wang, Christoph Pfisterer, David Parrish, Ed Bardsley, Eric Weigle, Gary Luo, Huaxia Xia, James Long, Jerry Zhiwei Cen, Keith Brady, Lantian Zheng, Liren Chen, Matthew Eastman, Nadav Samet, Niall Sheridan, Olivier Beyssac, Patrick Scott, Paul Chien, Pereira Braga, Petru Paler, Sara Smollett, Scott Lamb, Sebastian Adamczyk, Vladimir Filipović, Wensheng Wang, Yu Liao
- 20% time and additional engineering: Aaron Boodman, Abdulla Kamar, Akshay Patil, Aman Bhargava, Brad Fitzpatrick, Brett Bavar, Brett Slatkin, Charles Chen, Ed Ho, John Pongsajapan, Olga Stroilova, Peter Baldwin, Steve Jenson, Steve Lacey, T.V. Raman, Wiktor Gworek
- User Experience Designers: Jonathan Terleski, Sean McBride
- User Experience Research: Anna Avrekh, David Choi, Nika Smith, Theresa Sobczak
- User Support: Graham Waldon, Paul Wilcox, Wen-Ai Yu
I'm sure I'm missing names and got things wrong, so don't hesitate to contact me with corrections. And to everyone that I worked with on Reader, it was a pleasure!
P.S. For another take on the people behind Reader, see Chris's #unsungHeroesOfGoogleReader tweets.
15 Comments
Thanks for all the fish!
Great product, will be missed.
Read that carefully.
(si felicitari pentru ce ai facut la el)
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