Hi, I'm Derek.
I'm a Software Engineer and technical leader BASED IN Seattle.
I'm an experienced software engineer, manager, and technical leader. I'm equally comfortable designing large scale software systems, building bridges with stakeholders of all kinds, mentoring and developing other software engineers, or setting engineering policy. Whenever time allows, my passion continues to be writing, reviewing, and testing actual code.
In about a decade at Google I've worn many hats: Individual software engineer, manager of a small team (~10), and technical lead for a larger org (30+). If you've ever used Google Domains or the Google Cloud Domains API, that's me. Ask me how your DNS works.
You may have heard that my primary project, Google Domains, was sold to Squarespace. I'm busy leading that transition, to make sure the customers I spent the last decade serving have as easy a time with this as possible. Once that's done, circa Q4 2024, I'll be looking for something new.
I'd love to get into work that more directly addresses some of the biggest problems I see in the world, including climate change and threats to the democratic process.
Prior to Google I worked in academic research, specializing in AI, neural networks, and natural language applications. These skills are a little rusty these days but could easily be re-honed for an interesting project.