Posted by Yasmine Evjen, Community lead, Android DevRel
The community of Android developers is at the heart of everything we do. Seeing the community come together to build new things, encourage each other, and share their knowledge encourages us to keep pushing the limits of Android.
At the core of this is our Android Google Developer Experts, a global community that comes together to share best practices through speaking, open-source contributions, workshops, and articles. This is a caring community that mentors, supports each other, and isn’t afraid to get their hands dirty with early access Android releases, providing feedback to make it the best release for developers across the globe.
We asked, “What do you love most about being in the #AndroidDev and Google Developer Expert community?”
Gema Socorro says, ”I love helping other devs in their Android journey,” and Jaewoog Eum shares the joy of “Learning, building, and sharing innovative Android technologies for everyone.”
Hear from the Google Developer Expert Community
We also sat down with Ahmed Tikiwa, Annyce Davis, Dinorah Tovar, Harun Wangereka, Madona S Wambua, and Zarah Dominguez - to hear about their journey as an Android Developer and GDE and what this role means to them - watch them on The Android Show below.
Annyce, VP Engineer Meetup shares, “the community is a great sounding board to solve problems, and helps me stay technical and keep learning.”
Does the community inspire you? Get involved by speaking at your local developer conferences, sharing your latest Android projects, and not being afraid to experiment with new technology. This year, we’re spotlighting community projects! Tag us in your blogs, videos, tips, and tricks to be featured in the latest #AndroidSpotlight.
Posted by Swathi Dharshna Subbaraj, Project Coordinator, Google Dev Library
In May 2017, Google recognized the potential of Kotlin in the mobile developer community and made it an official language for Android development. As a result, talented developers in the Kotlin community used this robust programming language to build inspiring tools and open-source projects. This can be seen in the Google Dev Library, where developers have contributed extensively.
This article will showcase some of our Kotlin Google Developer Experts (GDEs) who have made significant contributions to the Google Dev Library. We hope these projects will inspire and guide your development efforts.
Nicola contributed Detekt to Google Dev Library, which is a static code analysis tool for Kotlin projects that helps developers detect and report on issues related to security, style, and best practices. It can be used to identify potential vulnerabilities, enforce coding standards, and improve code quality.
How did you get started in Kotlin? Is there any particular project that inspired you?
I began working with Kotlin in its early days of 2015. Though the experience was rocky, the ability to code Android apps in Kotlin rather than Java was a game-changer. At the time, it was challenging to convince my colleagues to switch due to the Java-dominant community. However, the official announcement of Kotlin support at Google I/O 2017 was a defining moment for the language. I am grateful for the ongoing support and development of such a powerful and versatile language, as well as the dedicated community that supports it daily.
I am grateful for the ongoing support and development of such a powerful and versatile language, and the dedicated community that supports it daily.- Nicola Corti, GDE Kotlin
Detekt, a static code analyzer tool, is not a creation of mine, but rather a project that I inherited from a friend who sought support in managing it. I have always been impressed by the capabilities of static code analyzers, particularly in terms of their ability to detect bugs and save developer time. At the time, the market for Kotlin static analyzers was relatively new, making Detekt a valuable addition to the toolkits of many Kotlin developers.
As a Kotlin GDE, what is the one piece of advice for someone who has just started as a Kotlin developer?
I highly recommend getting involved in the open-source community. My contributions to open-source projects have taught me invaluable skills and knowledge that I wouldn't have gained otherwise. Additionally, I have had the opportunity to connect with incredible contributors who have since become friends. Participating in open-source not only benefits yourself, but also the wider developer community.
John created the PeopleInSpace project, and shared it with Google Dev Library. The project utilizes the OpenNotify API to display information about people currently in space, such as their names, nationalities, and spacecraft. The focus of the project is more about demonstrating use of Kotlin Multiplatform.
How did you get started in Kotlin? Is there any particular project that inspired you?
In 2010, I began my career as an Android developer, utilizing Java as my primary programming language. As a Java backend developer for the previous decade, the transition was relatively seamless. However, it wasn't until the official announcement of Kotlin support at Google I/O 2017, that I fully realized the potential impact of this new programming language. Gradually, as my team and I started migrating to Kotlin, I came to appreciate how productive and expressive a language it was to use.
As my team and I started migrating to Kotlin, I came to appreciate how productive and expressive a language it was to use.-John O'Reilly, GDE Kotlin
What inspired you to develop and open source the Peopleinspace project?
In 2018, I was introduced to Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP) and was immediately impressed by its practical and efficient approach to code sharing. At the time, there was still a lot of uncertainty and confusion surrounding KMP, and I saw a need for a simple, easy-to-understand sample project that could demonstrate the basics of KMP.
I had an existing open-source project, GalwayBus, which I initially used to experiment with KMP, Jetpack Compose and SwiftUI as they became available. However, this project had a significant amount of legacy code and was not ideal for showcasing the essentials of KMP.
In late 2019, I came across an article by Ken Kousen that included sample code using retrofit to retrieve a list of people in space. I realized that this could be the perfect foundation for the minimal project I had been envisioning. So, I created PeopleInSpace, a project designed to encapsulate the core elements of a KMP project, and provide a clear and concise demonstration of how the various components work together.
As a Kotlin GDE, what is the one piece of advice for someone who has just started as a Kotlin developer?
Kotlin is a powerful language that offers many advanced features; however, it is possible to be very productive when starting out without needing to use those, in many cases, there are simpler alternatives that can be used, and as you become more familiar with the language, you can gradually explore and implement the more advanced options.
Join the global community of Kotlin developers and share your open source projects or technical blogs on Dev Library. To contribute, submit your content here.
How to learn Kotlin: JetBrains, the company behind the Kotlin language, offers certificate courses and learning tools for developers and has an active user groups forum where developers get support with programming language-related issues.
Posted by Tyler Erickson, Developer Advocate, Google Earth Engine
One of the greatest things about Earth Engine is the vibrant community of developers who openly share their knowledge about the platform and how it can be used to address real-world sustainability issues. To recognize some of these exceptional community members, in 2022 we launched the initial cohort of Earth Engine Google Developer Experts (GDEs). You can view the current list of Earth Engine GDEs on the GDE Directory page.
The initial cohort of Earth Engine Google Developer Experts.
What makes an Earth Engine expert? Earth Engine GDEs are selected based on their expertise in the Earth Engine product (of course), but also for their knowledge sharing. They share their knowledge in many ways, including answering questions from other developers, writing tutorials and blogs, teaching in settings spanning from workshops to university classes, organizing meetups and conference sessions that allow others to share their work, building extensions to the platform, and so much more!
Now that it is 2023, we are re-opening the application process for additional Earth Engine GDEs. If you’re interested in being considered, you can find information about the process in the GDE Program Application guide.
Posted by Janelle Kuhlman, Developer Relations Program Manager
The second of two interviews with GDEs about mental health, during Mental Health Awareness Month
Angular GDE Todd Motto would love to see people talk about mental health more freely–in tech and in other areas of life.
“Everyone struggles inside,” he says. “I see talking about it a good thing. Our brains are highly complex and need maintenance and good fuel.”
Todd says he silently struggled through most of his life with depression and anxiety, so it has become increasingly important to him to be forthright about it. He says ignoring feelings often makes things worse.
“The thing is, you can go through life just thinking it’s normal to feel this way, and you assume everyone else has bad days like that, as well, but things can slowly progress to become worse, without you realizing,” he says. “It took me a very long time to realize I had mental health issues–some issues were from my past, and I had adapted unhealthy lifestyle patterns to deal with those. I was pouring fuel on my own fire and not realizing it. That’s why it is important to me to raise awareness.”
He sees mental health as a balancing act and believes it’s important to take care of your body and mind every day. He recommends choosing your work projects and responsibilities carefully, if possible, to avoid taking on too much, and to pay attention to your internal thoughts.
“It’s important to be in tune with your body and also how your mind feels,” he says. “We all feel stress, but sometimes we just sit on autopilot and ignore it. This is when it’s time to protect your mental health. Keep an eye on your stress levels, as, at least for me, this played a huge role in the rest of my mental health.”
Todd copes with stress by carefully managing his workload, learning new things away from the keyboard, taking breaks from work throughout the day, and taking down time.
“To cope, I don’t overwhelm myself, and I take regular breaks, even if it’s just 1-2 minutes to walk into the kitchen and grab water,” he says. “Maybe I’ll walk into the garden and research a personal topic I’m interested in for a few moments.”
He also incorporates daily exercise, like running, swimming, and weight training, which he says helps his concentration, sleep, and mood.
“I have been running and swimming for years now, and swimming gives you time out from reality,” he says. “When you get physically stronger, you will unlock new levels of mental strength. That is my guarantee.”
Todd’s version of physical and mental challenges might be running up mountains and swimming in lakes, but your version might be going on a walk around the block, picking up a new instrument, or learning how to cook a new meal. Whatever it is, Todd feels it’s important to make time for these challenges, in order to achieve that balancing act he mentioned. He reminds other developers to keep work, life, body, and mind in balance as much as possible.
“I aim to have regular breaks and not overwhelm myself,” he says. “It’s easy to get stressed and have a bad work/life balance. Take breaks, and keep your stress levels low by doing so. You are more than worth it!”
Posted by Janelle Kuhlman, Developer Relations Program Manager
The first of two interviews with GDEs about mental health, during Mental Health Awareness Month
“I don’t think I have work-life balance,” says Google Workplace GDE Alice Keeler. “I could use some. I’m not very good at self-care, either…my idea of a good time is coding.”
Alice may be humble, but she juggles numerous responsibilities successfully. In addition to her freelance programming work and the books she has published, she has five children, all of whom have various mental health challenges. An educator known for publishing add-ons, schedulers, and Google Classroom tips, Alice teaches math to high school seniors. She says they also struggle with mental health, often due to poverty and family issues.
“I see firsthand as an employer, mom, and teacher how mental health challenges affect people, yet we expect everyone to suck it up and go to work, attend school, and respond to family events,” she says. “I’ve really been thinking about this a lot, as I see the challenges my family and students are going through. I try to offer lots of grace and flexibility to others.”
She points out that mental health is very personal. “Of the 20 people I feel closest to in my life, no one solution would work for all of them,” she says.
Coding as self-care
In Alice’s experience, tech has provided a means of self-care, professional opportunity, and academic support. “I think one of the benefits of coding is that it doesn’t necessarily have to be done at a certain time and can offer some flexible creative options for people,” she says. “I can code at 3am, and no one cares. It’s not very social, which is helpful for people who struggle with social expectations.”
And during those coding sessions, Keeler builds creative solutions.
“You can make really cool things,” she says. “When I solve a problem with ten lines of code, it’s a nice way for me to feel valued.”
Alice has found the GDE community to be tremendously supportive, even though at first, she worried no one would want to hear from her.
“I post in the GDE chat, and people respond with, ‘Alice!’,” she says. “I teach math; I’m not a full-time coder. I’m self taught; everything I do, I figure out myself. I don’t feel like an imposter anymore. I’ve gotten 14 add-ons approved.”
She has realized over time that even “experts” are still learning.
“You think everyone knows everything, but they don’t, and people may be considered experts, but you can put something out there they hadn’t even thought of,” she says. “You realize quickly that it’s not like a tower, and you’ve reached the top, it’s more like scattered LEGOs: I know some of this, and some of that, and you know this, and it’s scattered.”
Alice’s coding expertise grew out of her desire to create technological solutions for herself and other teachers that simplified their processes and reduced stress. She’s enthusiastic about the educational technology tools that help both teachers and students decrease stress and improve well-being.
Educational technology for improved well-being
Alice appreciates classroom technology that makes life easier for teachers and students. For example, she cites the tablet as “one of the best things that ever happened to special education,” because it provides students with learning challenges an alternative way to share their thoughts and demonstrate their understanding of academic material. Alice explains that tablets and Chromebooks make it easy to give students extra time on assignments and assessments when needed.
“It brought in an enormous amount of inclusivity that had been impossible,” she says. “It literally gives some kids a voice; they can submit questions and responses digitally, without raising their hands.”
Alice’s focus, as an educator, developer, and parent, is on using technology to streamline tasks and balance responsibility, which reduces stress, improves well-being, and benefits her mental health. During the pandemic, she appreciated how technology allowed her to teach online, write code, and also be present for her family. She had more time to go to her kids’ events and was able to dial down her stress. Like all of us, she’s still figuring out what comes next, but she’s committed to supporting her loved ones and students.
Posted by Janelle Kuhlman, Developer Relations Program Manager
The first of two interviews with GDEs about mental health, during Mental Health Awareness Month
“I don’t think I have work-life balance,” says Google Workplace GDE Alice Keeler. “I could use some. I’m not very good at self-care, either…my idea of a good time is coding.”
Alice may be humble, but she juggles numerous responsibilities successfully. In addition to her freelance programming work and the books she has published, she has five children, all of whom have various mental health challenges. An educator known for publishing add-ons, schedulers, and Google Classroom tips, Alice teaches math to high school seniors. She says they also struggle with mental health, often due to poverty and family issues.
“I see firsthand as an employer, mom, and teacher how mental health challenges affect people, yet we expect everyone to suck it up and go to work, attend school, and respond to family events,” she says. “I’ve really been thinking about this a lot, as I see the challenges my family and students are going through. I try to offer lots of grace and flexibility to others.”
She points out that mental health is very personal. “Of the 20 people I feel closest to in my life, no one solution would work for all of them,” she says.
Coding as self-care
In Alice’s experience, tech has provided a means of self-care, professional opportunity, and academic support. “I think one of the benefits of coding is that it doesn’t necessarily have to be done at a certain time and can offer some flexible creative options for people,” she says. “I can code at 3am, and no one cares. It’s not very social, which is helpful for people who struggle with social expectations.”
And during those coding sessions, Keeler builds creative solutions.
“You can make really cool things,” she says. “When I solve a problem with ten lines of code, it’s a nice way for me to feel valued.”
Alice has found the GDE community to be tremendously supportive, even though at first, she worried no one would want to hear from her.
“I post in the GDE chat, and people respond with, ‘Alice!’,” she says. “I teach math; I’m not a full-time coder. I’m self taught; everything I do, I figure out myself. I don’t feel like an imposter anymore. I’ve gotten 14 add-ons approved.”
She has realized over time that even “experts” are still learning.
“You think everyone knows everything, but they don’t, and people may be considered experts, but you can put something out there they hadn’t even thought of,” she says. “You realize quickly that it’s not like a tower, and you’ve reached the top, it’s more like scattered LEGOs: I know some of this, and some of that, and you know this, and it’s scattered.”
Alice’s coding expertise grew out of her desire to create technological solutions for herself and other teachers that simplified their processes and reduced stress. She’s enthusiastic about the educational technology tools that help both teachers and students decrease stress and improve well-being.
Educational technology for improved well-being
Alice appreciates classroom technology that makes life easier for teachers and students. For example, she cites the tablet as “one of the best things that ever happened to special education,” because it provides students with learning challenges an alternative way to share their thoughts and demonstrate their understanding of academic material. Alice explains that tablets and Chromebooks make it easy to give students extra time on assignments and assessments when needed.
“It brought in an enormous amount of inclusivity that had been impossible,” she says. “It literally gives some kids a voice; they can submit questions and responses digitally, without raising their hands.”
Alice’s focus, as an educator, developer, and parent, is on using technology to streamline tasks and balance responsibility, which reduces stress, improves well-being, and benefits her mental health. During the pandemic, she appreciated how technology allowed her to teach online, write code, and also be present for her family. She had more time to go to her kids’ events and was able to dial down her stress. Like all of us, she’s still figuring out what comes next, but she’s committed to supporting her loved ones and students.
How do we empower women in tech and equip them with the skills to help them become true leaders? One way is learning from others' successes and failures. Web GDEs—Debbie O'Brien, Julia Miocene, and Glafira Zhur—discuss the value of one to one mentoring and the impact it has made on their own professional and personal development.
A 2019 study showed that only 25% of keynote speakers at tech events are women, meanwhile 70% of female speakers mentioned being the only woman on a conference panel. One way of changing that is by running programs and workshops with the aim of empowering women and providing them with the relevant soft skills training, including public speaking, content creation, and leadership. Among such programs are the Women Developer Academy (WDA) and the Road to GDE, both run by Google's developer communities.
With more than 1000 graduates around the world, WDA is a program run by Women Techmakers for professional IT practitioners. To equip women in tech with speaking and presentation skills, along with confidence and courage, training sessions, workshops, and mentoring meetings are organized. Road to GDE, on the other hand, is a three-month mentoring program created to support people from historically underrepresented groups in tech on their path to becoming experts. What makes both programs special is the fact that they're based on a unique connection between mentor and mentee, direct knowledge sharing, and an individualized approach.
Julia Miocene
Some Web GDE community members have had a chance to be part of the mentoring programs for women as both mentors and mentees. Frontend developers Julia Miocene and Glafira Zhur are relatively new to the GDE program. They became Google Developers Experts in October 2021 and January 2022 respectively, after graduating from the first edition of both the Women Developer Academy and the Road to GDE; whilst Debbie O'Brien has been a member of the community and an active mentor for both programs for several years. They have all shared their experiences with the programs in order to encourage other women in tech to believe in themselves, take a chance, and to become true leaders.
Different paths, one goal
Although all three share an interest in frontend development, each has followed a very different path. Glafira Zhur, now a team leader with 12 years of professional experience, originally planned to become a musician, but decided to follow her other passion instead. A technology fan thanks to her father, she was able to reinstall Windows at the age of 11. Julia Miocene, after more than ten years in product design, was really passionate about CSS. She became a GDE because she wanted to work with Chrome and DevTools. Debbie is a Developer Advocate working in the frontend area, with a strong passion for user experience and performance. For her, mentoring is a way of giving back to the community, helping other people achieve their dreams, and become the programmers they want to be. At one point while learning JavaScript, she was so discouraged she wanted to give it up, but her mentor convinced her she could be successful. Now she's returning the favor.
Debbie O'Brien
As GDEs, Debbie, Glafira, and Julia all mention that the most valuable part of becoming experts is the chance to meet people with similar interests in technology, to network, and to provide early feedback for the web team. Mentoring, on the other hand, enables them to create, it boosts their confidence and empowers them to share their skills and knowledge—regardless of whether they're a mentor or a mentee.
Sharing knowledge
A huge part of being a mentee in Google's programs is learning how to share knowledge with other developers and help them in the most effective way. Many WDA and Road to GDE participants become mentors themselves. According to Julia, it's important to remember that a mentor is not a teacher—they are much more. The aim of mentoring, she says, is to create something together, whether it's an idea, a lasting connection, a piece of knowledge, or a plan for the future.
Glafira mentioned that she learned to perceive social media in a new way—as a hub for sharing knowledge, no matter how small the piece of advice might seem. It's because, she says, even the shortest Tweet may help someone who's stuck on a technical issue that they might not be able to resolve without such content being available online. Every piece of knowledge is valuable. Glafira adds that, "Social media is now my tool, I can use it to inspire people, invite them to join the activities I organize. It's not only about sharing rough knowledge, but also my energy."
Working with mentors who have successfully built an audience for their own channels allows the participants to learn more about the technical aspects of content creation—how to choose topics that might be interesting for readers, set up the lighting in the studio, or prepare an engaging conference speech.
Learning while teaching
From the other side of the mentor—mentee relationship, Debbie O'Brien says the best thing about mentoring is seeing the mentees grow and succeed: "We see in them something they can't see in themselves, we believe in them, and help guide them to achieve their goals. The funny thing is that sometimes the advice we give them is also useful for ourselves, so as mentors we end up learning a lot from the experience too."
Glafira Zhur
Both Glafira and Julia state that they're willing to mentor other women on their way to success. Asked what is the most important learning from a mentorship program, they mention confidence—believing in yourself is something they want for every female developer out there.
Growing as a part of the community
Both Glafira and Julia mentioned that during the programs they met many inspiring people from their local developer communities. Being able to ask others for help, share insights and doubts, and get feedback was a valuable lesson for both women.
Mentors may become role models for the programs' participants. Julia mentioned how important it was for her to see someone else succeed and follow in their footsteps, to map out exactly where you want to be professionally, and how you can get there. This means learning not just from someone else's failures, but also from their victories and achievements.
Networking within the developer community is also a great opportunity to grow your audience by visiting other contributors' podcasts and YouTube channels. Glafira recalls that during the Academy, she received multiple invites and had an opportunity to share her knowledge on different channels.
Overall, what's even more important than growing your audience is finding your own voice. As Debbie states: "We need more women speaking at conferences, sharing knowledge online, and being part of the community. So I encourage you all to be brave and follow your dreams. I believe in you, so now it's time to start believing in yourself."
Nishu Goel is a renowned web engineer from India, Google Developer Expert for Angular and web technologies, Microsoft Most Valuable Professional. She’s the author of Step by Step Angular Routing (BPB, 2019) and A Hands-on Guide to Angular (Educative, 2021) as well as the author of Web Almanac 2021 JavaScript chapter. Nishu currently works at epilot GmbH as a full stack engineer. She told us about her community involvement, career plans and the best ways to learn web development.
Monika: Let’s start with your story. What inspired you to become a developer and take on an active role within dev communities?
Nishu: I got my bachelor’s degree in computer science, we studied data structures, and that’s where the interest in programming started. During the third year of engineering, a connection with the developer community was established through my participation in the Microsoft Imagine Cup Nationals competition where we presented solutions through code. The idea of the application we built was to bring educational opportunities to local students, especially girls. I met some very inspiring people, both contestants and organizers in this journey.
In 2018, my professional career took off, and I started working with Angular. Angular became the primary technology that connected me to the GDE program. Around the same time, I started writing blog posts and creating content around the subject I was working on and learning . Dhananjay Kumar helped me get started on this journey and ensured to keep me on track. My first articles tackled the basics of Angular. Soon after I started speaking at events-the first one being ngNepal, Nepal’s Angular Conference. This led to more speaking invitations about Angular and web technologies.
Monika: What’s your professional experience technology-wise?
Nishu: It was all about Angular and web components for the first two years. I was using Angular for building the web, but soon I decided to go beyond that and explore other fields. I didn’t want to limit myself in case I’d have to switch projects. That’s how I started creating web components in Angular to use in other frameworks.
The first thing I did was to create web components using Angular. I published it to npm and used it as a demo in a React project. I’ve discussed this during some of my talks and presentations later. My next job required using React and Typescript. Now, because I was working with React, I wasn’t just using one framework anymore, but the web in general. At that moment I learned a lot about the web, especially web performance. That’s when I had to start thinking about the Largest Contenful Paint (LCP) or First Contentful Paint (FCP), which means how much time it will take your application to load or what’s going to be the maximum time for the page to render. I have been working towards choosing best practices and an improved performance of the applications.
Because of this interest in web performance, I got involved in the Web Almanac and wrote the JavaScript chapter. Web Almanac is an annual report on the state of the web in general — it tells us how people are using different features. Last year 8.6 million websites were screened, the data was analyzed and presented in the report. The report includes statistics like the usage of the async and defer attributes in a <script> element. How many websites are using them correctly, how many are not using that at all, and how many improved those compared to 2020. The last Web Almanac report mentioned that around 35% of websites used two attributes on the same script, which was an anti-pattern, decreasing the performance. This was pointed out last year, and this year we tried to see if the situation improved. I also spoke at ngConf and Reliable Dev Summit, where I focused on the performance of the web.
Monika: You’re also very much involved in giving back to the community. Lately you’ve been volunteering with a Ugandan NGO YIYA — how did it start and what was the main point of that cooperation?
Nishu: It started with the GDE team informing us about the volunteering opportunity with YIYA. The Ugandan NGO was looking for engineers to help them with either the content preparation or technical features. The program aims to empower school-aged children in Uganda and offer them education opportunities using the technologies available locally — not computers or textbooks, but rather basic keypad phones and radios. The children would dial a certain number and receive a set of information, dial another one for more insights, and so on. It became even more useful during the pandemic.
Since I’ve always been involved with the community and sustainable development goals, I decided to reach out. After a meeting with the YIYA team, I offered my help with the Python scripts or any bugs they came up with, any issues with the portal. We worked together for a brief amount of time.
Monika: What are your plans for 2022? Is there anything you’re focusing on in particular?
Nishu: I’m switching jobs and moving to another country. I’ll be working on the web in general, improving the site performance, and also on the backend, using Golang. I’ll continue to zero in on the web performance area since it’s very interesting and complex, and there’s a lot to understand and optimize. Even now, after dedicating a lot of my time to that, there’s still so much to learn. For example, I’d love to understand how using a CDN for my image resources would help me make my app even faster. I want to become THE expert of web performance — I’m gradually getting there, I like to believe :)
Monika: You’ve mentioned starting to write at a point when you were not an expert, you were just writing what you were learning. What would your advice be to new developers coming through and feeling they don’t have anything to share?
Nishu: That’s exactly how I felt when I started writing. I thought that maybe I should not put this out? Maybe it’s just wrong? I was worried my writing was not going to help the readers. But the important thing was that my writing was helping me. I would forget things after some time and then come back to something I wrote earlier. Writing things down is a great idea.
So I would suggest everyone — just write, at whatever stage. Even if you’ve only finished one part of a course you’re going through — you’re learning by writing it down. A piece of information that you got to know at some point may be useful to others who don’t know that yet. You don’t need to be an expert. Writing will help you. And anyone, at any stage of their career.
Monika: It’s best to follow people who just learned something because they know all the things they had to figure out. Once you’re an expert, it’s hard to remember what it was like when you were new. And any advice for someone who’s just getting into web development?
Nishu: Many people ask which framework they should choose when they’re starting, but I think that’s not the right question. Whatever we are learning at any point should be useful at a later stage as well. I would advise anyone to drop the limitations and start with HTML or JavaScript — that’s going to be profitable in the future.
And then take any opportunity that comes your way. This happened to me when I stumbled upon information about the Web Almanac looking for authors. I just thought, “oh, this is interesting, this may help everyone with the performance side of things”. That’s how I became a content lead for the JavaScript chapter, and I’ve spent six months writing it. So I think it’s just about grabbing the opportunities and working hard.
Monika: Do you have any predictions or ideas about the future of web technology in general? What’s going to be the next hot topic? What’s going to be growing fast?
Nishu: I love the fact that we’re able to run servers within browsers now, this is a great advancement. For example, running Node.js from the browser has been introduced lately, meanwhile in the past we could not run anything without having Node.js installed in our systems. Now we can do anything from the browser. This is a huge step further in the web ecosystem. And the OMT — Off the Main Thread. Working on the threads is going to be much improved as well. Web Assembly is advancing and enables developers to do that, and I think that is the future of the web ecosystem.
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.
Joel Humberto Gómez is an application developer at IBM, writing applications that improve the performance of IBM’s internal organization. While his job focuses on frontend development using React, he also has experience with web development using JavaScript. He has held many technical lead roles, in which he makes technical decisions and product delivery plans. Joel has a Computer Science degree from Universidad Veracruzana and has familiarity with databases, mobile development, web development, networks, and servers. He is a GDE in Web Technologies and Google Maps Platform.
“I’ve been involved in projects related to asset delivery and NFC in mobile development and projects about data visualization and automation processes in companies,” he says. “In 2022, I want to be more involved in the open source community.”
Joel uses Google Maps Platform to visualize data and explore data in projects focused on data visualization. In one project, he used the Maps JavaScript API. In another, he focused on trace routes and visualizing points to recollect and deliver packages. In a third project, he used the Place Autocomplete services and Directions API. Now, he is working on a non-profit project to show some places related with medical services.
Getting involved in the developer community
At university, one of Joel’s instructors organized events related to Linux, like Install Fest, with his students.
“With time, I became one of their students, and he motivated me to share knowledge with others and be brave and go beyond the university and my comfort zone,” Joel says. “I started to organize events and talks and got to know people in other communities.”
Gómez enjoyed sharing with his community and received encouragement from other GDEs to apply to the GDE program to share his knowledge more widely.
“I love to share with my community, but sometimes the knowledge just stays in your community,” he says. “Diego DeGranda, a GDE specializing in web technologies, encouraged me to apply and go beyond my community to share with communities outside of my country.”
As a GDE, Gómez has met other developers from around the world, with whom he talks about technology and shares experiences. Another benefit of being a GDE is the opportunity to learn from other GDEs and Google employees.
“In 2020, I had more activities, because location wasn’t a limitation anymore,” he said. “For speakers, virtual meetings are sometimes complicated, but we are adapting to this situation and using and creating tools to get and provide a better experience.”
Favorite Google Maps Platform features
Gómez’ favorite Google Maps Platform feature is the Local Context API.
“I think it’s a cool feature and has a lot of potential to create better applications,” he says. “I have some projects where Local Context helps me with some features, and I don’t need to develop by myself. In 2020, I gave some talks about the new features, wrote blog posts about them, and made videos about them.”
Future plans
Joel plans to create more content about Local Context, Plus Codes and other features in Google Maps Platform.
“I’m planning to start with a podcast about Maps and how to use it to create better applications,” he says. “I’ve been doing this in Spanish, so I need to create content in English, too.”
He has three professional goals: start to contribute to open source, create a little startup, and start projects that use Google Maps Platform.
Welcome to #IamaGDE - a series of spotlights presenting Google Developer Experts (GDEs) from across the globe. Discover their stories, passions, and highlights of their community work.
Leigh Johnson turned her childhood love of Geocities and Neopets into a web development career, and then trained her focus on Machine Learning. Now, she’s a staff software engineer at Slack, a Google Developer Expert in Web and Machine Learning, and founder of Print Nanny, an automated failure detection system and monitoring system for 3D printers.
Meet Leigh Johnson, Google Developer Expert in Web and Machine Learning.
GDE Leigh Johnson
The early days
Leigh Johnson grew up in the Bronx, NY, and got an early start in web development when she became captivated by Geocities and Neopets in elementary school.
“I loved the power of being able to put something online that other people could see, using just HTML and CSS,” she says.
She started college and studied Latin, but it wasn’t the right fit for her, so she dropped out and launched her own business building WordPress sites for small businesses, like local restaurants putting their menus online for the first time or taking orders through a form.
“I was 18, running around a data center trying to rack servers and teaching myself DNS to serve my customer base, which was small business owners,” she says. “I ran my business for five years, until companies like Squarespace and Wix started to edge me out of the market a little bit.”
Leigh went on to chase her dream of working in the video game industry, where she got exposed to low-level C++ programming, graphics engines, and basic statistics, which led her to machine learning.
Machine learning
At the video game studio where she worked, Leigh got into Bayesian inference.
“It’s old school machine learning, where you try to predict things based on the probability of previous events,” she explains. “You look at past events and try to predict the probability of future events, and I did this for marketing offers—what’s the likelihood you’d purchase a yellow hat to match your yellow pants?”
In the first month or two of trying email offers, the company made more small dollar sales than they typically made in a year.
“I realized, this is powerful dark magic; I must learn more,” Leigh says.
She continued working for tech startups like Ansible, which was acquired by Red Hat, and Dave.com, doing heavy data lifting.
“Everything about machine learning is powered by being able to manipulate and get data from point A to point B,” she says.
Today, Leigh works on machine learning and infrastructure at Slack and is a Google Developer Expert in machine learning. She also has a side project she runs: Print Nanny.
Print Nanny: Monitoring 3D printers
When Leigh got into 3D printing as a hobby during the COVID-19 shutdown, she discovered that 3D printers can be unreliable and lack sophisticated monitoring programs.
“When I assembled my 3D printer myself, I realized that over time, the calibration is going to change,” she says. “It's a very finicky process, and it didn't necessarily guarantee the quality of these traditional large batch manufacturing processes.”
She installed a nanny cam to watch her 3D printer and researched solutions, knowing from her machine learning experience that because 3D printers build a print up layer by layer, there’s no one point of failure—failure happens layer by layer, over time. So she wrote that algorithm.
“I saw an opportunity to take some of the traditional machine intelligence strategies used by large manufacturers to ensure there’s a certain consistency and quality to the things they produce, and I made Print Nanny,” she says. “It uses a Raspberry Pi, a credit card-sized computer that costs $30. You can stick a computer vision model on one and do offline inference, which are basically predictions about what the camera sees. You can make predictions about whether a print will fail, help score calculations, and attenuate the print.”
Leigh used Google Cloud Platform AutoML Vision, Google Cloud Platform IoT Core, TensorFlow Model Garden, and TensorFlow.js to build Print Nanny. Using GCP credits provided by Google, she improved and developed Print Nanny with TensorFlow and Google Cloud Platform products.
When Print Nanny detects that a print is failing, the user receives a notification and can remotely pause or stop the printer.
“Print Nanny is an automated failure detection system and monitoring system for 3D printers, which uses computer vision to detect defects and alert you to potential quality or safety hazards,” Leigh says.
Leigh has hired team members who are interested in machine learning to help her with the technical aspects of Print Nanny. Print Nanny currently has 2100 users signed up for a closed beta, with 200 people actively using the beta version. Of that group, 80% are hobbyists and 20% are small business owners. Print Nanny is 100% open source.
Becoming a GDE
Leigh got involved with the GDE program about four years ago, when she began putting machine learning models on Raspberry Pis and building robots. She began writing tutorials about what she was learning.
“The things I was doing were quite hard: TensorFlow Light, the mobile device of TensorFlow—there was a missing documentation opportunity there, and my target platform, the Raspberry Pi, is a hobbyist platform, so there was a little bit of missing documentation there,” Leigh says. “For a hobbyist who wanted to pick up a Raspberry Pi and do a computer vision project for the first time, there was a missing tutorial there, so I started writing about what I was doing, and the response was tremendous.”
Leigh’s work caught the eye of Google staff research engineer Pete Warden, the technical Lead of the TensorFlow Mobile team, who encouraged her, and she leveraged the GDE program to connect to Google experts on TensorFlow and machine learning. Google provides a machine learning course for developers and supports TensorFlow, in addition to its many AI products.
“I had no knowledge of graph programming or what it meant to adapt the low-level kernel operations that would run on a Raspberry Pi, or compiling software, and I learned all that through the GDE program,” Leigh says. “This program changed my life.”
Leigh’s favorite part of the GDE program is going to events like TensorFlow World, which she last attended in 2019, and GDE summits. She hadn’t travelled internationally until she was in her 20’s, so the GDE program has connected her to the international community.
“It’s been life-changing,” she says. “I never would have had access to that many perspectives. It’s changed the way I view the world, my life, and myself. It’s very powerful.”
Leigh’s advice to future developers
Leigh recommends that people find the best environment for themselves and adopt a growth mindset.
“The best advice that I can give is to find your motivation and find the environment where you can be successful,” she says. “Surround yourself with people who are lifelong learners. When you cultivate an environment of learning around you, it's this positive, self-perpetuating process.”
