Tag Archives: angular

Global Google Developer Experts Share Their Favorite Tools and Advice for New Developers

Posted by Lyanne Alfaro, DevRel Program Manager, Google Developer Studio

Developer Journey is a monthly series highlighting diverse and global developers sharing relatable challenges, opportunities, and wins in their journey. Every month, we will spotlight developers around the world, the Google tools they leverage, and the kinds of products they are building.

This month we speak with global Google Developer Experts in Firebase, Women Techmakers, and beyond, to learn more about their favorite Google tools, the applications they’ve built to serve diverse communities, and their best advice for anyone just getting started as a developer.

Juan Lombana

Headshot of Juan Lombana, smiling
Mexico City, Mexico
Founder, Mercatitlán

What Google tools have you used to build?

Google Analytics and Firebase's A/B testing features have been pivotal in our data-driven approach, enabling continuous improvement in our conversion strategies. More recently, Bard has become a significant asset in developing new products and in our educational endeavors, especially with the introduction of our AI course. Its utility in both product development and educational settings is profound.


Which tool has been your favorite to use? Why?

If I had to choose, it would be Google Ads. Its ability to consistently drive new customers and provide unparalleled visibility to quality products is unmatched. While it may not traditionally be considered a 'tool' in the strictest sense, its impact on business growth and visibility is indisputable.


Please share with us about something you’ve built in the past using Google tools.

My entire business, Mercatitlán, has been built and scaled using Google Tools. We have cultivated a community of over 40,000 paid students, educating them on effective use of Google Ads, leveraging Bard for enhanced website content, and employing Google Analytics for strategic A/B testing to boost sales. The transformational impact of these tools on both my business and my students' ventures is a testament to their potential.


What will you create with Google Bard?

The integration of Bard AI into our daily operations is revolutionizing the way we approach digital marketing. Beyond its current uses in social media content creation, ad ideas generation, email composition, and customer support enhancement, we're exploring several innovative applications:

  • Personalized Marketing Campaigns: Using Bard AI, we can analyze customer data and preferences to create highly personalized marketing campaigns. This helps in delivering more relevant content to our audience, thereby increasing engagement and conversion rates. 
  • Competitive Analysis: By analyzing competitor data, Bard AI can help us understand their strategies, strengths, and weaknesses. This intelligence is crucial for refining our marketing approach and differentiating our brand in the marketplace.
  • Content Optimization for SEO: Bard can assist in optimizing website and blog content for search engines. By understanding and integrating key SEO principles, it can help us rank higher in search results, thus improving our online visibility. 
  • Automated Reporting and Insights: Automating the generation of marketing reports and insights with Bard saves time and resources, allowing our team to focus on strategy and creativity rather than manual data analysis.

What advice would you give someone starting in their developer journey?

The key is to start with action rather than waiting for perfection. Adopt a mindset focused on experimentation and analytics. This approach allows you to follow data-driven insights rather than solely relying on innovation, leading to significant societal impact through technology.


Jirawat Karanwittayakarn

Headshot of Jirawat Karanwittayakarn, smiling
Bangkok, Thailand
Tech Evangelist, LINE Thailand

What Google tools have you used to build?

I have used a variety of Firebase services to build LINE chatbots for a number of years. These services have included Cloud Functions, Cloud Firestore, Cloud Storage, Firebase Hosting, and etc. Recently I have also used the PaLM API, a very powerful tool that allows me to build Generative AI chatbots.


Which tool has been your favorite to use? Why?

Firebase is my favorite tool because it is a platform that provides a complete set of tools for building and managing mobile, web, and chatbots. It is very easy to use and has a wide range of features that make it a great choice for developers of all levels. Furthermore, Firebase services have allowed me to scale my chatbots and make them more reliable.


Please share with us about something you’ve built in the past using Google tools.

  • LINE Developers TH is a chatbot that allows Thai developers to learn about LINE APIs and get started with building services. It also provides users with the ability to try out demos of LINE APIs.
  • TrueMoney is a wallet app that I have built in the past using Firebase. The app allows users to store money, send money, and pay bills. It is a very popular app in Thailand, with over 10 million users.
  • Sanook is an app that allows users to access news, articles, and other content from the number one web portal in Thailand on their mobile devices.

What will you create with Google Bard?

I would like to create a use case of building a powerful LINE chatbot using PaLM API and Firebase for developers. I believe this will be a great way to showcase the power of these tools and how they can be used to create innovative solutions.


What advice would you give someone starting in their developer journey?

First and foremost, I would encourage them to be curious and always be willing to learn new things. The world of technology is constantly changing, so it's important to stay up-to-date on the latest trends and technologies. This can be done by reading articles, attending conferences, and taking online courses.

Secondly, I would recommend that they find a mentor or role model who can help guide them on their journey. Having someone who has been through the process can be invaluable in providing support and advice. They can help you identify areas where you need to improve, and provide you with tips and tricks for success.

Finally, I would encourage them to never give up. The road to becoming a developer can be challenging, but it's also incredibly rewarding. If you're passionate about technology, then don't let anything stop you from pursuing your dreams.


Laura Morinigo

Headshot of Lauren Moringo, smiling
London, England
Women Techmakers Ambassador
Principal Engineer and Consultant, Samsung Electronics UK

What Google tools have you used to build?

I have used tools like Google Cloud and Firebase.


Which tool has been your favorite to use? Why?

I would say Firebase! It helped me to build web apps and explore new technologies easily while saving a lot of time and resources. Additionally, a lot of functionalities have been added recently. Over the years, I've witnessed its evolution, with the addition of numerous functionalities that continually enhance its utility and user experience. This constant innovation within Firebase not only simplifies complex tasks but also opens doors to creative possibilities in web app development.


Please share with us about something you’ve built in the past using Google tools.

I've been leading a project in partnership with the United Nations to help share information about its worldwide global goals. We used Firebase hosting and Cloud functions for the first release of the web app and it was a success! It felt very good to help create tools that support a good cause.


What will you create with Google Bard?

I'm experimenting with the current extensions to improve personal productivity. It's very interesting how you can improve the way that you do your daily tasks.


What advice would you give someone starting in their developer journey?

Remember that as a developer you will have the power to create! Use this power to build personal projects and combine it with things that you enjoy. You will start building a portfolio and have fun while learning. Finally, don't hesitate to find a mentor and connect with a community of developers to support and guidance in your journey. You can find a lot of help, improve your networking, and even have friends for life!

Global Developers Share How They Use Inclusive Design

Posted by Lyanne Alfaro, DevRel Program Manager, Google Developer Studio

Developer Journey is a monthly series highlighting diverse and global developers sharing relatable challenges, opportunities, and wins in their journey. Every month, we will spotlight developers around the world, the Google tools they leverage, and the kind of products they are building.

This month we speak with global developers across Google Developer Experts, Google Developer Groups, and beyond to learn more about their favorite Google tools, the applications they’ve built to serve diverse communities and the role of inclusive design in their process.


Lamis Chebbi

Headshot of Lamis Chebbi, smiling
Republic of Tunisia
Senior Software Engineer

What Google tools have you used to build?

I use Lighthouse and Google PageSpeed Insights to audit my application's performance and check my accessibility score. I can learn a lot about my application users and measure their engagement through Google Analytics. I have also used: Angular, Angular Dev tools, Firebase, TensorFlow and some services through Google Cloud Platform.


Which tool has been your favorite to use? Why?

On a daily basis I use Angular to develop my web applications. It helped me develop web applications faster with less code, less debugging time, and high scalability. The Angular CLI automates a lot of tasks, including the upgrade process, which saves a lot of time.


Please share with us about something you’ve built in the past using Google tools.

I have built a lot of web apps and progressive web apps using Angular, Firebase and TensorFlow in various fields from insurance, to banking, retail and education.


What will you create with Google Bard?

I'm planning on creating a blog using Google Bard and to generate content in different languages and enable some search and updates for content.


What role does inclusive design play in your development process?

Accessibility is no longer an option today. It is as important as other development goals and should be automated in the development process using the right tools.


What advice would you give someone starting in their developer journey?

Here’s a few pieces of advice for other professionals:

  • Invest in learning as much as you can and always practice the technologies you learn.
  • Don't forget that practice makes perfect.
  • Join developer communities and get a mentor; you will learn a lot and receive a lot of help.
  • Try to keep up with new technologies and trends that will open new perspectives for you.

You’ll probably make some mistakes. Be willing to accept it and learn from it.


Amani Bisimwa

Headshot of Amani Bisimwa, smiling
Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo
Google Developer Groups Uvira Lead
Frontend Developer

What Google tools have you used to build?

I am using Angular and Firebase.


Which tool has been your favorite to use? Why?

Firebase is my favorite. I like how Firebase has simplified things by providing a Backend as Service. You no longer need to manage your own servers, worry about scalability, or other Backend complexities.


Please share with us about something you’ve built in the past using Google tools.

I have built some private ERP apps that help small local traders to manage their business (stock management, finance and hotels).


What will you create with Google Bard?

I always use Bard for guidance to document and test code. I hope to use it for more projects in the future.


What role does inclusive design play in your development process?

The role of a designer in the development process is so important to me. Not only does it allow me to arrange the elements well on the screen, but it also ensures that the application is accessible to users living with disabilities. The designer also knows how to choose colors, contrasts and hierarchy of different elements.


How do you prioritize accessibility alongside other development goals?

Accessibility is a priority for me when creating an app or product. I consider accessibility at every stage of the development process. I use a variety of tools and resources to ensure my apps are accessible to everyone, including people with visual impairments, hearing impairments, motor disabilities and cognitive disabilities.


What advice would you give someone starting in their developer journey?

My advice is: Choose your path and stick to it because there are several distractions from the trends of new technologies on social media especially on Twitter. Don't skip the steps; learn the fundamentals.  It's important because even to improve a prompt with generative AI, you need to have a solid understanding in your field.



Enrique López Mañas

Headshot of Enrique López Mañas, smiling
Munich, Germany
Freelance Software Engineer

What Google tools have you used to build?

Android Studio is my daily tool. I have used other tools or frameworks (like Firebase or TensorFlow) in the past as well. My choice of tool depends on the needs of the project I am currently engaged with.


Which tool has been your favorite to use? Why?

Android Studio is my absolute favorite, which is not a surprise for an Android Developer.


Please share with us about something you’ve built in the past using Google tools.

I have worked in many apps and frameworks in the past. The Deutsche Bahn (German Train) application, a Corona app for the Arab Emirates, the app for Alibaba couriers in Vietnam, and now the Google Maps library for Compose.


What will you create with Google Bard?

Bard and other tools like ChatGPT help me with the development of apps and software in general. I do feel they are not yet ready to significantly impact the development process. They still suffer from many inaccuracies and hallucinations.


How do you prioritize accessibility alongside other development goals?

Much less than I would actually like to. Often companies are on a budget and some important things tend to get deprioritized. As a developer (and consultant) my role is to advise them, and A11y is one of the main topics that tend to be underrated.

For instance, do you know that approximately 20% of the users in Switzerland have some form of disability, and can benefit from apps with accessibility integrated? I was really surprised when I heard this number, and I am fairly confident most people don't know about it. If there were more awareness, apps would benefit more from A11y practices.


What advice would you give someone starting in their developer journey?

For new developers: ask all the questions. Never leave a room with a doubt or a question and without an answer. Even more senior people do not have all the answers all the time, and the only way to know if they do is to ask questions. Do not feel embarrassed by raising your hand in a meeting. Ask all the questions you need. The quality of your life will be determined by the quality of your questions.

Google Dev Library Letters: 19th Edition

Posted by the Dev Library team

In this newsletter, we’re highlighting the best projects developed with Google technologies that have been contributed to the Google Dev Library platform. We hope this will spark some inspiration for your next project!


Contributions of the Month


[ML] Serving Stable Diffusion by Chansung Park

Learn the various ways to deploy Stable Diffusion with TensorFlow Serving, Hugging Face Endpoint, and FastAPI.


[ML] Textual inversion pipeline for Stable Diffusion by Chansung Park

Dive into this repository which demonstrates how to manage multiple models and their prototype applications of fine-tuned Stable Diffusion on new concepts by Textual Inversion.

Read more on DevLibrary 


[Flutter] Animated soccer rating hexagon by Prateek Sharma

Create a hexagon widget in Flutter that displays the ratings of a soccer player or team. The six sides represent a different aspect of the player or team's rating such as speed, strength, and accuracy.

Read more on DevLibrary 


Android & Kotlin


Mastering Kotlin Coroutines by Amit Shekhar

Dive into an introduction to coroutines in Kotlin programming language. Coroutines are a way to write asynchronous and non-blocking code in a sequential and easy-to-understand manner.

Kotlin Symbol Processing (KSP) for code generation by Tim Lin

Discover more about KSP API you can use to develop lightweight compiler plugins, which helps you get the complete source code information during compile time.

Form Conductor by Naing Aung Luu

Learn about form conductor. More than form validation, it provides a handful of reusable API to construct a form in simple easy steps.

MovieDB by Gabriel Bronzatti Moro

Discover how to fetch data from Movie DB API and allow users to search for movies and view details and store them on a local database in this Android project.


Angular


A complete guide to Angular Multilingual Application by Hossein Mousavi

Dive into the technical aspects of building a multilingual Angular application, starting with the localization of the application's text.


Flutter


Bank cards UI by Ethiel Adiassa

See how Flutter can be used to create aesthetically pleasing and functional UI designs for banking applications.

macOS UI by Reuben Turner

Dive into the repo resource for designers and developers looking to create beautiful templates and tutorials to create macOS applications and interfaces.


Google Cloud


Search for Brazilian laws using Dialogflow CX and matching engine by Rubens Zimbres

Develop a chatbot using Dialogflow CX and a matching engine to help users search for something specific in legislation.

Awesome CloudOps automation by Doug Sillars

Learn how a single repository could satisfy all your day-to-day CloudOps automation needs.

Serverless Kubernetes on Google Cloud Platform by Gursimar Singh

Learn how serverless technologies like Cloud Run can be used to simplify and expedite the process of designing software applications.

Implement secure CI/CD with Workload Identity Federation, GitLab CI, and Cloud Deploy by Ezekias Bokove

See how to implement a secure Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipeline using Workload Identity Federation and GitLab CI.


Google Dev Library Letters: 18th Edition

Posted by the Dev Library Team

In this newsletter, we’re highlighting the best projects developed with Google technologies that have been contributed to the Google Dev Library platform. We hope this will spark some inspiration for your next project!


Contributions of the month


Moving image showing SSImagePicker in different modes

[Android] SSImagePicker by Simform

See how to use a lightweight and easy-to-use image picker library that has features like cropping, compression and rotation, video, and Live Photos support.



Moving image showing overview of coroutines

[Kotlin] Mastering Coroutines in Kotlin by Reyhaneh Ezatpanah

Dive into a comprehensive overview of coroutines including tips and best practices, along with a detailed explanation of the different types of coroutines available in Kotlin and how to use them effectively.

Read more on DevLibrary


Flow Chart demonstrating Image to Image stable diffusion in Flax

[Machine Learning] Image2Image with Stable Diffusion in Flax by Bachir Chihani

Learn the uses of the Diffusion method, a technique used to improve the stability and performance of image-to-image translation models.

Read more on DevLibrary


Android


Jetpack Compose state, deconstructed by Yves Kalume

Learn how state management in Jetpack Compose is implemented, how it can be used to build a responsive and dynamic UI, and how it compares to other solutions in Android development.


Dynamic environment switching on Android by Ashwini Kumar

Find out how to switch between different environments (such as development, staging, and production) in an Android app.


Migration to Jetpack Compose for a legacy application by Abhishek Saxena

Migrate an existing legacy Android application to Jetpack Compose, a modern UI toolkit for building native Android apps



Machine Learning


Simple diffusion in TensorFlow by Bachir Chihani

Understand the benefits of using TensorFlow for image processing, including the ability to easily parallelize computations and utilize GPUs for faster processing.


Deep dive into stable diffusion by Bachir Chihani

Look into the Flax implementation of the Stable Diffusion model to better understand how it works.


Create-tf-app by Radi Cho

See the tool that allows you to quickly create a TensorFlow application by generating the necessary code and file structure.

 

Angular


NGX-Valdemort by Cédric Exbrayat

Dive into a set of pre-built validation rules and error messages for commonly encountered use cases, making it easy to quickly implement robust form validation for your application.


Passing configuration dynamically from one module to another using ModuleWithProviders by Madhusuthanan B

Learn how to pass configuration data dynamically between modules in an Angular application.


Flutter


Mastering Dart & Flutter DevTools by Ashita Prasad

Look at the first part of the series aimed at helping developers to understand how to use the tools effectively to build applications with Dart and Flutter.


Server-driven UI in Flutter - an experiment on remote widgets by Akshat Vinaybhai Patel

Learn the insights, code snippets and results of the experiment for readers to better understand the concept of Server-Driven UI and its potential in Flutter app development.


Flutter Photo Manager by Alex Li

Learn an easy-to-use API for accessing the device's photo library, that performs operations like retrieving images, videos, and albums, as well as deleting, creating, and updating files in the photo library.


Firebase


How to authenticate to Firebase using email and password in Jetpack Compose? By Alex Mamo 

Here’s a simple solution for implementing Firebase Authentication with email and password, using a clean architecture with Jetpack Compose on Android.


Google Cloud


Google Firestore Data Source plugin for Grafana by Prasanna Kumar

Learn how it allows users to perform operations like querying, aggregating, and visualizing data from Firestore, making it a powerful tool for monitoring and analyzing real-time data in a variety of applications. The repository provides the source code for the plugin and documentation on how to install and use it with Grafana.


Cluster cloner by Joshua Fox

See how this project aims to replicate clusters across different cloud environments and examine these varying infrastructure models.


Getting to know Cloud Firestore by Mustapha Adekunle

Learn how this post covers the basic features and benefits of Cloud Firestore, and how this document database is a scalable and versatile NoSQL cloud database.


Google’s Mandar Chaphalkar has submitted Data Governance with Dataplex

Discover how Dataplex can be used to transform data to meet specific business requirements, and how it can integrate with other Google Cloud services like BigQuery for efficient data storage and analysis.

Google Dev Library Letter: 17th Edition

Posted by the Dev Library Team

We are highlighting the best projects developed with Google technologies that have been shared on the Google Dev Library platform. We hope this will spark some inspiration for your next project.


Android - Content of the Month



Transformers by Daichi Furiya

See the Android transformation library providing a variety of image transformations for Coil, Glide, Picasso, and Fresco.



Camposer by Lucas Yuji Yoshimine

Learn how the camera library in Jetpack Compose which supports taking photos, recording videos, flash modes, zoom ratio, and more.

Read more on DevLibrary




ChatGPT Android by Jaewoong Eum

Integrate ChatGPT on Android with Stream Chat SDK for Compose.

Read more on DevLibrary




Continue reading

Interview with Vanessa Aristizabal, contributor to Google’s Dev Library

Posted by the Dev Library Team

We are back with another edition of the Dev Library Contributor Spotlights - a blog series highlighting developers that are supporting the thriving development ecosystem by contributing their resources and tools to Google Dev Library.

We met with Vanessa Aristizabal, one of the many talented developers contributing to Dev Library, to discuss her journey of learning the Angular framework and what drives her to share insights regarding budding technologies with the developer community.

What is one thing that surprised you when you started using Google technology?

Talking about my journey, Angular was my first JavaScript framework. So, I was really surprised when I started using it because with only a few lines of code, I could create a good application.

What kind of challenges did you face when you were learning how to use Angular? How did you manage to overcome them?

I would like to share that maybe it’s a common practice for developers that when we are working on some requirement for a project, we look it up on Google or Stack Overflow. And if we find a solution, we copy and paste the code without internalizing that knowledge. The same happened to me. Initially, I implemented bad practices as I did not know Angular completely. This led to the bad performance of my applications.

I overcame this challenge by checking the documentation properly and doing in-depth research on Google to learn good practices of Angular and implement them effectively in my applications. This approach helped me to solve all the performance-related problems.

How and why did you start sharing your knowledge by writing blog posts?

It was really difficult to learn Angular because, in the beginning, I did not have a solid basis for the web. So, I first had to work on that. And during the process of learning Angular, I always had to research something or the other because sometimes I couldn’t find the thing that I needed in the documentation.

I had to refer to blogs, search on Google, or go through books to solve my requirements. And then I started taking some notes. From there on, I decided to start writing so I could help other developers who might be facing the same set of challenges. The idea was to help people find something useful and add value to their learning process through my articles.
Google Dev Library Logo is in the top left with Vanessa's headshot corpped into a circle. Vanessa is wearing a dark grey t-shirt and smiling, a quote card reads, 'I decided to start writing so I could help other developers who might be facing the same set of challenges. the idea was to help people find something useful and add value to their learning process through my articles' Vanessa Aristizabal Dev Library Contributor
Find out more content contributed and authored by Vanessa Aristizabal (@vanessamarely) and discover more unique tools and resources on the Google Dev Library website!

Dev Library Letters: 16th Issue

Posted by the Dev Library Team

Welcome to the 16th Issue! Our monthly newsletter curates some of the best projects developed with Google tech that have been submitted to the Google Dev Library platform.  We hope this brings you the inspiration you need for your next project!

    Content of the month

How to exclude stylesheets from the bundle and lazy load them in Angular

by Dharmen Shah

Learn how to load stylesheets only when needed without making them part of an application bundle.


    Check out content from Google Cloud, Angular, Android, ML, & Flutter


Android

  • Check out this Android library that offers dialogs and views for various use cases built with Jetpack Compose for Compose projects by Maximilian Keppeler.

  • Learn how to create and publish your own Android Library with JitPack by Matteo Macri.

Angular

  • Dive into into composition and inheritance in Angular by Dany Paredes featuring an example focused on forms that highlights why you should be careful using inheritance in components.

  • Read “Angular dependency injection understood” by Jordi Riera to gain a broader perspective of how it works, why it is important, and how to leverage it inside angular.

Cloud

  • Learn how Iris automatically assigns labels to Google Cloud resources for manageability and easier billing reporting in this post by Joshua Fox.

  • Check out Glen Yu’s hack for those in regions without access to native replication in “Pulumi DIY GCS replication” - some of these solutions will require understanding of the fundamental building blocks that make up the Google Cloud Platform.

Flutter

  • Learn how to make Flutter projects scalable by using a modularization approach in R. Rifa Fauzi Komara’s article, “Flutter: mastering modularization”.

  • Check out Let’s Draw by Festus Olusegun, a simple app made with Flutter that enables users to draw art with freehand, line, and shape tools.

  • Explore how to use Cubits from the Bloc library to manage states and get the benefits and drawbacks of this approach in Verena Zaiser’s article.

Machine Learning

  • Get an overview on Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs, ConvNets), why they matter, and how to use them in Henry Ndubuaku’s tutorial, “Applying CNNs to images for computer vision and text for NLP”.

  • See why you should add deep learning framework Jax to your stack and get an intro to writing and training your own neural networks with Flax in this introduction tutorial by Phillip Lippe.

Want to read more? 
Check out the latest projects and community-authored content by visiting Google Dev Library.
Submit your projects to showcase your work and inspire developers!

How is Dev Library useful to the open-source community?

Posted by Ankita Tripathi, Community Manager (Dev Library)


Witnessing a plethora of open-source enthusiasts in the developer ecosystem in recent years gave birth to the idea of Google’s Dev Library. The inception of the platform happened in June 2021 with the only objective of giving visibility to developers who have been creating and building projects relentlessly using Google technologies. But why the Dev Library?

Why Dev Library?

Open-source communities are currently at a boom. The past 3 years have seen a surge of folks constantly building in public, talking about open-source contributions, digging into opportunities, and carving out a valuable portfolio for themselves. The idea behind the Dev Library as a whole was also to capture these open-source projects and leverage them for the benefit of other developers.

This platform acted as a gold mine for projects created using Google technologies (Android, Angular, Flutter, Firebase, Machine Learning, Google Assistant, Google Cloud).

With the platform, we also catered to the burning issue – creating a central place for the huge number of projects and articles scattered across various platforms. Therefore, the Dev Library became a one-source platform for all the open source projects and articles for Google technologies.

How can you use the Dev Library?

“It is a library full of quality projects and articles.”

External developers cannot construe Dev Library as the first platform for blog posts or projects, but the vision is bigger than being a mere platform for the display of content. It envisages the growth of developers along with tech content creation. The uniqueness of the platform lies in the curation of its submissions. Unlike other platforms, you don’t get your submitted work on the site by just clicking ‘Submit’. Behind the scenes, Dev Library has internal Google engineers for each product area who:

  • thoroughly assess each submission,
  • check for relevancy, freshness, and quality,
  • approve the ones that pass the check, and reject the others with a note.

It is a painstaking process, and Dev Library requires a 4-6 week turnaround time to complete the entire curation procedure and get your work on the site.

What we aim to do with the platform:

  • Provide visibility: Developers create open-source projects and write articles on platforms to bring visibility to their work and attract more contributions. Dev Library’s intention is to continue to provide this amplification for the efforts and time spent by external contributors.
  • Kickstart a beginner’s open-source contribution journey: The biggest challenge for a beginner to start applying their learnings to build Android or Flutter applications is ‘Where do I start my contributions from’? While we see an open-source placard unfurled everywhere, beginners still struggle to find their right place. With the Dev Library, you get a stack of quality projects hand-picked for you keeping the freshness of the tech and content quality intact. For example, Tomas Trajan, a Dev Library contributor created an Angular material starter project where they have ‘good first issues’ to start your contributions with.
  • Recognition: Your selection of the content on the Dev Library acts as recognition to the tiring hours you’ve put in to build a running open-source project and explain it well. Dev Library also delivers hero content in their monthly newsletter, features top contributors, and is in the process to gamify the developer efforts. As an example, one of our contributors created a Weather application using Android and added a badge ‘Part of Dev Library’.

    With your contributions at one place under the Author page, you can use it as a portfolio for your work while simultaneously increasing your chances to become the next Google Developer Expert (GDE).

Features on the platform

Keeping developers in mind, we’ve updated features on the platform as follows:

  • Added a new product category; Google Assistant – All Google Assistant and Smart home projects now have a designated category on the Dev Library.
  • Integrated a new way to make submissions across product areas via the Advocu form.
  • Introduced a special section to submit Cloud Champion articles on Google Cloud.
  • Included displays on each Author page indicating the expertise of individual contributors
  • Upcoming: An expertise filter to help you segment out content based on Beginner, Intermediate, or Expert levels.

To submit your idea or suggestion, refer to this form, and put down your suggestions.

Contributor Love

Dev Library as a platform is more about the contributors who lie on the cusp of creation and consumption of the available content. Here are some contributors who have utilized the platform their way. Here's how the Dev Library has helped along their journey:

Roaa Khaddam: Roaa is a Senior Flutter Mobile Developer and Co-Founder at MultiCaret Inc.

How has the Dev Library helped you?

“It gave me the opportunity to share what I created with an incredible community and look at the projects my fellow Flutter mates have created. It acts as a great learning resource.”


Somkiat Khitwongwattana: Somkiat is an Android GDE and a consistent user of Android technology from Thailand.

How has the Dev Library helped you?

“I used to discover new open source libraries and helpful articles for Android development in many places and it took me longer than necessary. But the Dev Library allows me to explore these useful resources in one place.”


Kevin Kreuzer: Kevin is an Angular developer and contributes to the community in various ways.

How has the Dev Library helped you?

“Dev Library is a great tool to find excellent Angular articles or open source projects. Dev Library offers a great filtering function and therefore makes it much easier to find the right open source library for your use case.”



What started as a platform to highlight and showcase some open-source projects has grown into a product where developers can share their learnings, inspire others, and contribute to the ecosystem at large.

Do you have an Open Source learning or project in the form of a blog or GitHub repo you'd like to share? Please submit it to the Dev Library platform. We'd love to add you to our ever growing list of developer contributors!

#IamaGDE: Katerina Skroumpelou (Athens, Greece)

The Google Developers Experts program is a global network of highly experienced technology experts, influencers, and thought leaders who actively support developers, companies, and tech communities by speaking at events and publishing content.

Katerina Skroumpelou, who is based in Athens, Greece, is a Senior Software Engineer at Narwhal Technologies, a consulting firm whose product Nx lets developers build multiple full-stack applications and share code among them in the same workspace. She is a Google Developer Expert in Maps and Angular.

Image shows  Katerina Skroumpelou looking straight ahead at the camera. She is seated behind a laptop with a red cover covered in stickers

Becoming a Google Maps Platform developer

Skroumpelou has always had a deep love of maps.

“My father used to have old maps books, and I’ve always been obsessed with knowing where I am and having an understanding of my surroundings, so I’ve always liked maps,” she says.

After learning to code in high school, Skroumpelou decided she wanted to be a programmer and spent a year studying computer engineering at the National Technical School of Athens, but she wasn’t excited about it, so she pursued a Master’s in architectural engineering there, instead. Then she earned her master’s degree in spatial analysis at University College London.

“They have a Center for Advanced Spatial Analysis--everything to do with maps, spatial data, and analysis, which combined my love of maps, space, and programming,” she says. “My master’s combined my passions, and I got into programming and maps--we created them with code.”

Skroumpelou returned to Greece after her master’s and took postgraduate courses at the National Technical School of Athens to get a more solid foundation in programming. She landed a job as a web developer at the National Centre for Scientific Research “Demokritos,” which works on European Union-funded security and safety research projects. Her first project was to build a system to help manage a fire department fleet.

“I had to work with maps and annotate on the map where a fire could break out, and how the fleet would be distributed to put it out, so I started working with Google Maps then,” she says. “For another research project on airport security, I imported information into a Google Map of the airport.”

She also learned Angular on the job. Skroumpelou moved on to several software engineering jobs after that and continued to work with Angular and build Google Maps projects in her spare time.

Getting involved in the developer community

Skroumpelou’s first foray into the Google developer community began when she was learning Angular for her job at the research center and watching conference talks on Angular online.

“I thought, hey, I can do that too, and I started thinking about how to get involved,” she says. “I reached out to the Angular Connect London conference, and my talk was accepted. It wasn’t strictly technical; it was “From Buildings to Software,” describing my journey from architectural engineering to software engineering.”

Since then, Skroumeplou has spoken at Google Developer Groups events, local meetups, and DevFest. She became a GDE in 2018 in Angular, Web Technologies, and Google Maps Platform and finds it incentivizes her to use Google tools for new projects.

“Apart from the feeling that you’re giving back to the community, you gain things for yourself on a personal level, and it’s an incentive to do even more,” she says.

She appreciated meeting other developers who shared her passion.

“I’m a very social person, and it really feels like we have common ground,” she says.

Image shows Katerina Skroumpelou presenting onstage at a conference. Behind her is a podium and a wall covered in a planetary theme

Favorite Google Maps Platform features

Skroumpelo’s favorite Google Maps Platform features are Cloud-based Maps styling, the drawing library, and the drawing manager.

“I used the drawing library a lot when I was working at the research institute, drawing things on the map,” she says. “Being able to export the data as JSON and import it again is cool.”

She used the styling feature while building a friend’s website and styled a map to go with the brand colors.

“It looks neat to have your brand colors on the map,” she says. “You can remove things from the map and add them back, add geometries, points, and other things, and draw it as you want.”

She speaks highly of Google Maps Platform’s out-of-the-box interactive features for users, like the JS repository, which has examples developers can clone, or they can use NPM to generate a new Map application.”

“It makes building a map or using it much easier,” she says, adding, “The Google Maps Platform docs are very good and detailed.”

Image shows a map of London illustrating loneliness in people over the age of 65

Future plans

Skroumpelou plans to stay with Narwhal Technologies for the long term and continue to work with Google Maps Platform as much as possible.

“I really like the company I’m working for, so I hope I stay at this company and progress up,” she says.

Image shows Katerina Skroumpelou looking off-camera with a smile. She is standing behind a podium with a laptop with a red cover covered in stickers

Follow Katerina on Twitter at @psybercity | Check out Katerina’s projects on GitHub

For more information on Google Maps Platform, visit our website or learn more about our GDE program.

#IamaGDE: Josue Gutierrez

Posted by Alicja Heisig

#IamaGDE series presents: Google Maps

The Google Developers Experts program is a global network of highly experienced technology experts, influencers, and thought leaders who actively support developers, companies, and tech communities by speaking at events and publishing content.

Meet Josue Gutierrez — Maps, Web, Identity and Angular Google Developer Expert.

Josue currently works at the German company Boehringer Ingelheim and lives near Frankfurt. Before moving to Germany, Josue was working as a software engineer in Mexico, and before that, he spent almost a year in San Francisco as a senior front-end developer at Sutter Health.

Image of Josue Gutierrez

Josue Gutierrez

Josue studied computer science and engineering as an undergraduate and learned algorithms and programming. His first language was C++, and he learned C and Python, but was drawn to web technologies.

“When I saw a web browser for the first time, it stuck with me,” he says, “It was changing in real time as you’re developing. That feeling is really cool. That’s why I went into frontend development.”

Josue has worked on multiple ecommerce projects focused on improving customers’ trade experience. He sees his role as creating something from scratch to help people improve lives.

“These opportunities we have as developers are great — to travel, work for many verticals, and learn many businesses,” he says. “In my previous job, I developed tech-oriented trade tools for research companies, to manipulate strings or formulas. I was on the team involved in writing these kinds of tools, so it was more about the trade experience for doctors.”

Getting involved in the developer community

Josue’s first trip outside Mexico, to San Francisco, exposed him to the many developer communities in the area, and he appreciated the supportive communities of people trying to learn together. Several of the people he met suggested he start his own meetup in Mexico City, to get more involved in Google technologies, so he launched an Angular community there. As he hunted for speakers to come to his Angular meetup, Josue found himself giving talks, too.

Then, the GDG Mexico leader invited Josue to give talks on Google for startups.

“That helped me get involved in the ecosystem,” Josue says. “I met a lot of people, and now many of them are good friends. It’s really exciting because you get connected with people with the same interests as you, and you all learn together.”

“I’m really happy to be part of the Google Maps ecosystem,” Josue says. “It’s super connected, with kind people, and now I know more colleagues in my area, who work for different companies and have different challenges. Seeing how they solve them is a good part of being connected to the product. I try to share my knowledge with other people and exchange points of view.”

Josue says 2020 provided interesting opportunities.

“This year was weird, but we also discovered more tools that are evolving with us, more functionalities in Hangouts and Meetup,” Josue says. “It’s interesting how people are curious to get connected. If I speak from Germany, I get comments from countries like Bolivia and Argentina. We are disconnected but increasing the number of people we engage with.”

He notes that the one missing piece is the face-to-face, spontaneous interactions of in-person workshops, but that there are still positives to video workshops.

“I think as communities, we are always trying to get information to our members, and having videos is also cool for posterity,” he says.

He is starting a Maps developer community in Germany.

“I have colleagues interested in trying to get a community here with a solid foundation,” he says. “We hope we can engage people to get connected in the same place, if all goes well.”

Favorite Maps features and current projects

As a frontend developer, Josue regards Google Maps Platform as an indispensable tool for brands, ecommerce companies, and even trucking companies.

“Once you start learning how to plant coordinates inside a map, how to convert information and utilize it inside a map, it’s easy to implement,” he says.

In 2021, Josue is working on some experiments with Maps, trying to make more real-time actualization, using currently available tools.

“Many of the projects I’ve been working on aren’t connected with ecommerce,” he says. “Many customers want to see products inside a map, like trucking products. I’ve been working in directories, where you can see the places related to categories — like food in Mexico. You can use Google Maps functionalities and extend the diversification of maps and map whatever you want.”

“Submission ID is really cool,” he adds. “You can do it reading the documentation, a key part of the product, with examples, references, and a live demo in the browser.”

Future plans

Josue says his goal going forward is to be as successful as he can at his current role.

“Also, sharing is super important,” he says. “My company encourages developer communities. It’s important to work in a place that matches your interests.”

Image of Josue Gutierrez

Follow Josue on Twitter at @eusoj |Check out Josue’s projects on GitHub.

For more information on Google Maps Platform, visit our website or learn more about our GDE program.