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Young Innovators @ Google - Jeff Chang
March 15, 2011
Introduction: Today we’re launching Young Innovators @ Google, a new blog series highlighting the great work of Googlers who, not too long ago, were students like you. In their short careers, these engineers and product managers have had an impact on Google and our products. For our first post, we sat down for a few questions with Jeff Chang, a Product Manager for Google Chrome.
When did you first join Google, and why were you interested in being a product manager?
Jeff Chang:
My first position at Google was as an
Associate Product Manager
(APM) intern in the summer of 2007. At the time, I was studying computer science at MIT, with a minor in management. Though I had done a number of software engineering internships in previous years, I had the opportunity to take on a more product-management-like role at
Akamai
, an Internet content delivery company, during my junior year. I was immediately drawn to the idea of being involved in the entire product development life-cycle from design to launch, envisioning the “big picture” and working alongside various roles outside of pure engineering.
I learned a lot during the summer I spent as a Google APM intern, working on what eventually became
Google Profiles
. After the internship, I knew that product management was a good fit for me, and I joined Google full-time in the fall of 2008 after graduating with my bachelor’s degree.
What was your first project at Google, and what impact did it have?
JC:
My first official project after joining full-time involved a piece of the Gmail backend used for routing emails and other messages across
Google Apps
. This infrastructure work familiarized me with the various technologies and dependencies within the organization. Within a couple months, I had joined the
Google Groups
team, which consisted of only a few engineers and no product manager at the time. The Groups team was working hard to replace the internal mailing list system used within Google, but there weren’t really any concrete plans for developing it further after that.
Both the team’s engineering manager and I realized there was a huge opportunity for Groups to expand into the enterprise Google Apps business. We were able to get the organization’s leadership to agree, and were soon executing on our vision. And that’s how I found myself taking charge of a product, and designing and prioritizing features, only a few months after joining.
Long story short, about a year later, the team officially
launched
Google Groups as an enterprise product, and it’s used by millions of people today. Even though the team itself was quite small, we had plenty of computing infrastructure available to support our launch, as well as dozens of companies willing to beta test the product.
How has your role evolved since then?
JC:
After working on Groups for a year, I decided to switch to the
Google Chrome
team as part of the
APM program
rotation. At first, I focused on the technologies and APIs that make advanced
web apps
possible; now, I oversee all user interface features, Flash and PDF plugins, and privacy in Chrome. I also manage the feature set that goes into every Chrome release, and am coordinating the Chrome team’s presence at the
Google I/O
developer conference this year.
The challenges of working on Chrome are different than those of Groups -- we target a slightly different user audience, almost all of our development work is done publicly since it’s an open-source product (I constantly remind myself that tech bloggers can read my bug updates), and I have to juggle efforts distributed across a dozen or more office locations. But the work is fulfilling in many of the same ways, as I get to reach and affect millions of people’s daily lives.
Overall, how do you feel about your last few years here at Google, and what do you see yourself doing next?
JC:
To say I’ve been lucky to have had so many opportunities is an understatement. I’m very happy with what I’ve been able to accomplish in just a couple years here, and I’m also super grateful to all the talented Googlers I’ve worked with. It still surprises me how much ownership and independence I’m given as a 24-year old college grad.
As for what’s next -- for now, there is plenty of exciting work happening on Chrome; the team and the user base is growing impressively, and I’m looking forward to guiding it through many more versions. I’m still learning more and being challenged by my job every day, so I plan to keep at it as long as that’s true. And I know that no matter what I do in the future, I’ll be much better equipped with the skills I’ve acquired and experiences I’ve had at Google.
Any fun Google stories to share?
JC:
One of my fondest memories will always be the time I woke up at 4 a.m. to watch the auctioning of fresh tuna at Tokyo’s
Tsukiji fish market
with my fellow APMs during our multi-city
international trip
in the summer of 2009. After dragging our bleary-eyed selves to the market and watching the raucous auction, we stepped into a nearby restaurant to feast on some of the fresh fish. It was without a doubt the best sushi I’ve ever had, anywhere. I remember, at one point, realizing we had missed the rendezvous time that
Marissa
had pre-arranged for the group -- only to look across at the other table and see she was still eating as well. So we just ordered more sushi.
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