Naturally this list only includes projects I’m allowed to talk about! For many projects I was not the only person who worked on it. Projects I worked on as part of my 20% time are labeled with 20%. The projects are ordered from most to least recent.

• Spearheaded the development of high-fidelity Markdown import and export for Docs, enhancing its compatibility with numerous content management systems and resulting in a user importing or exporting Markdown every second. 20%

  Several news outlets took note:

  • Ars Technica: Real, actual Markdown support is arriving in Google Docs, not a moment too soon
  • How-To Geek: Google Docs Can Now Import and Export Markdown

  And Hacker News definitely noticed.

  

• Co-led a foundational rearchitecture of the Docs backend, frontend, and data model to implement tabs in Docs, including updating all cross-cutting features, resulting in ~1.75 tabs on average for recently opened documents. The Verge took note: “Google Docs is making it much easier to organize information”.

• Delighted users with some easter eggs in Docs. Try typing @tictactoe or @fourinarow! 20%

• Integrated Gemini into Docs to enable GenAI content generation and rewrites, complete with headings, lists, tables, and other rich content, as a member of a large team, resulting in ~150,000 weekly usages.

  Many news outlets took note:

  • Forbes: Google Stock Jumps As It Puts Artificial Intelligence Into Google Docs
  • Fortune: GPT-4 debuts and Google beats Microsoft in race to add generative A.I. to consumer office tools
  • Reuters: Google unveils ‘magic wand’ to draft documents as AI race tightens
  • The Verge: Google announces AI features in Gmail, Docs, and more to rival Microsoft
  • USA Today: Google unveils new features for Docs, Gmail and more amid AI race
  • The Washington Post: Google is adding AI to its work apps. Here’s what that means.

• Jointly implemented code block support in Docs, including automatic Markdown detection and conversion, resulting in ~90,000 weekly code block insertions, with 25% from Markdown conversion. The Verge took note: “Google’s making code formatting a breeze in Docs”.

• Independently empowered Docs users with improved data organization by developing an option to split table cells, leading to ~1.15 million weekly cell splits. 20%

• Boosted Google Docs collaboration by 8% by developing a real-time email alert system, complete with subscription settings and document diffs for recent edits, that sends ~300,000 weekly emails, as a member of a 3-person team.

• Increased developer productivity by implementing automatic Markdown detection and conversion for Docs, Slides, and Drawings¹, resulting in ~1.2 million automatic weekly conversions. 20%

  Several news outlets took note:

  • WIRED: “How to Use Markdown in Google Docs”
  • The Verge: ”# Google Docs is getting more Markdown support”
  • TechCrunch: “Google adds limited Markdown support to Google Docs”

  And tech Twitter definitely noticed.

• Simplified Docs, Slides, and Drawings authoring with shared prefix substitution rule support, and en- and em-dash substitution, resulting in a 45% increase in substitutions and no change in undo rates. 20%

• Increased the width of comment threads in Docs. They were way too narrow and it was bothering me! 😅 20%

• Developed dynamic Drive sharing emails that automatically update with the latest thumbnail, owner, and edit details via a high-performance endpoint handling 300 queries per second, resulting in 6% fewer short sessions from the emails.

• Expanded link previews in Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drawings to links in comment threads. Previously, they only appeared for links in the editor itself. 20%

• Streamlined finding new and important comments in Docs with comment badging and filtering, boosting reply creation and comment resolutions by 2%. USA TODAY took note: “Google Docs upgrades comments feature to make collaboration easier”.

• Interned on the Sites team in the Summer of 2019 and enabled site viewers to provide feedback on published Sites.