I’m very grateful of my time at Google, where I worked on a number of interesting projects. Sadly, many of those products are no longer around.
Google Wave
When I started at Google, I worked on a few random projects like App Engine and Google Mashup Editor to start but then moved onto the Google Wave team, which was headquartered in Sydney, Australia. Google Wave was a highly anticipated and technologically novel product that Google released back in 2009. I worked on the API platform, which included Google Wave Gadgets and Robots (server-side participants).
I loved the team and the technology we put together. I believe Google Wave blazed the trail for what was possible in the browser and lead to the development of real-time collaboration in a browser with products like Google Docs.
+1 Button
After Google Wave, I moved onto the codename “Emerald Sea” project at Google, which was effectively Google’s response to the rise of Facebook and social networking. I was a Tech Lead for the +1 Button, which was the first modest step into social networking. We released it on the Google homepage and released a 3rd party embed platform, similar to Facebook’s Like button.
Google+
After release of the +1 Button, work on the actual destination site (Google+) began and was released as an alternative to Facebook. I participated as a founding member and Tech Lead of the User Profiles and Business Pages aspect of Google+. After 4.5 years, I left Google prior to the eventual shutdown of Google+ to join Square.