I lead engineering at Mashgin, where we build AI-powered self-checkout for retail and stadiums. Before that I ran engineering at Doxel, bringing computer vision to construction sites.
Earlier in my career: Google (tech lead / manager on the Google+ Stream backend, also worked on Search), Twitter (Twitter Ads; founded the company’s internal engineering-leadership program, TWIG), TellApart (software architect on the ad-bidding stack).
The through-line is high-performance systems and the teams that own them — the rare combination of caring about both the machine and the people running it. I started writing the Open Leadership & Management Cookbook to capture some of what I’d learned about the second half.
UC Berkeley, 2000–2002. Now in Redwood City, California.
Patents
Named inventor
- US12254429B2 — “Generating status of construction site based on hierarchical modeling that standardizes physical relationships of elements of a structure.” Doxel, granted 2025-03-18 (filed 2021-05-28 as US20220383231A1). With Arunava Saha, Richard William Turner, Matthew Paul Orban.
- US9432418B1 — “Presenting an event-related post in a stream.” Google, granted 2016-08-30. With Boris Mazniker, Mehran Bozorgi. Google+ Stream era.
- US20130346498A1 — “System and method for hosting and sharing a live event.” Google, published 2013-12-26 (application). One of ten named inventors on the Google+ live-events filing.
Contributed to
- US12223613B2 — “Tracking an ongoing construction by using fiducial markers.” Doxel, granted 2025-02-11. Filed during my tenure; I helped drive it forward but am not a named inventor.
Publications
- “Extensions of BG for testing and benchmarking alternative implementations of feed following.” With Sumita Barahmand, Shahram Ghandeharizadeh. ACM SIGMOD/PODS 2014 workshop. Came out of work on Google+ Stream feed-following performance.
- “Benchmarking interactive social networking actions.” Sumita Barahmand, USC dissertation, 2014. I’m acknowledged for mentoring during the Google+ Stream era.
Outside work
I co-organize a Bay Area fusion-dance community, climb, ski, mountain bike, and travel when I can. I’m on the Boosters Board for WHS Robotics Team 100 — Woodside High School’s FIRST Robotics team, “The Wildhats,” founded 1995, first FRC team on the West Coast — and spend a chunk of time on civic-accountability projects. See Hobbies and Writings.