Jeff Bowman
Senior Software Engineer in San Jose, CA
https://www.jbowman.com/

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Tech Lead of Google Maps Platform SDKs for Android, iOS, and Javascript.
In my role I support and advocate for cross-organization solutions: Propose,
design, measure, get buy-in, track, and deliver.

I love inheriting hacks old and new and engineering them into solid, clean
solutions, particularly regarding internal and external APIs. I also enjoy
honing my writing and presentation skills and helping fellow developers through
my contributions on StackOverflow.

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Recent work

Google
Software Engineer (2010 - present, 4 promotions)
currently Senior Staff Software Engineer

- Google Maps Platform (2020 - present)
  Area Tech Lead across all Maps Platform mobile SDKs and Javascript APIs,
  representing the work of 40+ engineers. I create and track cross-cutting
  proposals for improved performance, API surfaces, and reliability efforts
  including testing. I also support, advocate for, and measure team efforts to
  executives and to other TLs.
- Google Maps for Android (2013 - 2019)
  Contributing engineer and Platform Architecture TL for one of the most
  widely-used Android applications in the world. Codebase-wide refactors and
  testing, including unit, integration, and screenshot tests. Tech Lead of a
  team of 5 engineers.
- Internal CRM tool (2010 - 2013)
  Contributing engineer on a Java/JSP/GWT internal tool.

Volunteer/personal work

Anthropomorphic Arts and Education, LLC
Convention staff (2012 - present) and nonprofit Board of Directors (2017 - present)

Executive staff for a 4000+-attendee fan convention with a $300k+ annual budget
held annually at the San Jose Convention Center. Roles include Chairman (2015,
2017), Programming Director, Marketing Director, and Executive Secretary.
Elected to Board as a Director at Large in 2017. Responsibilities include
scheduling and data tracking, business arrangements with partner hotel and
business organizations, graphic design work, leadership of 150+ volunteer staff
members, and public speaking on behalf of the organization.

StackOverflow
Personal contributions (2012 - present)

As of February 2024, I am in StackOverflow's top 1500 contributors or
top 0.2% (by reputation points). I am one of two gold badge
contributors to dagger-2, and I am the sole gold badge contributor on the
topics of guice and mockito. Based on pageviews to my highly-ranked answers,
StackOverflow has estimated my total impact as
reaching ~8 million people. See my
Q&A highlights page.

Previous experience

- Livescribe, Inc. (consumer tech startup): Oakland, CA, 2007 - 2010
  Web Developer / Web Services Intern: ActionScript 3, Javascript, HTML
- The Daily Californian (student newspaper): Berkeley, CA, 2006 - 2008
  Web Developer / Online Manager: PHP/HTML, developed CMS, managed 2 other developers
- Democratic Education at Cal: Berkeley, CA, 2005 - 2008
  Webmaster / Program Co-Director: PHP/HTML, developed CMS (still in use as of
  2021)
- Xanga.com Inc. (blogging platform): Freelance Designer, 2004 - 2006
  Web and Interactive Ad Developer: Flash/ActionScript 2

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Skills

Languages

- Fluent: Java for Android, JavaScript, TypeScript
- Comfortable: Bash, Kotlin for Android, Python
- Conversational: C, C++, Go
- Markup: HTML, CSS, XML/XSLT/XPath, Markdown, JSX/TSX

Tools and libraries

- Front-End: Vue, Angular, React, Preact
- Testing: Mocha, Chai, JUnit, Puppeteer
- Web app framework: Django
- Dependency injection: Dagger, Hilt, Guice
- Database: MySQL, Supabase
- Data: Protocol Buffers
- Build: Bazel/Starlark
- Source control: Git, Perforce, Mercurial

Other skills

- Tech leadership
  - Project advocacy and management
  - Project breakdowns and delegation
  - Impact measurement
  - Mentorship and team career growth
- SDK management and API design
- Test plans: unit, system, integration, and E2E test design and implementation
- Graphic and layout design (Photoshop, InDesign, Premiere, After Effects)

Education

University of California, Berkeley
B.A. in Computer Science

Other interests

- Flying (Private pilot)
- Lindy Hop swing dancing
- Photography and video editing
- Embedded and IoT programming