Greg Schechter
Los Angeles based Entrepreneur, Engineering Leader, and Web Warrior
Founder
December 2019 - Present
We're building field guides for the modern explorer. Schechter Natural History's Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians of North America is the most comprehensive digital field guide out there. It contains illustrations and details for over 700 different species of herps (reptiles and amphibians).
https://schechterguides.com
https://schechterguides.com
Staff Software Engineer
September 2020 - Present
Engineering Manager on Google Lens
Leading a team bringing Google Lens to Chrome on Desktop, Android, and iOS.
https://lens.google/
Leading a team bringing Google Lens to Chrome on Desktop, Android, and iOS.
https://lens.google/
Staff Engineer and Engineering Manager
April 2016 - December 2019
As the first, engineering full time hire, I helped the company grow from a pre-seed start-up focused on dynamic pricing, to the multifaceted company focused on designing & managing a new category of accommodations with the largest multi-family operators.
As a Tech Lead with the Wheelhouse Product from 2016 to 2018, I led a team of 5, working in Ruby and React, to build Wheelhouse's first in class personalize pricing platform.
As the Engineering Manager and Staff Tech Lead of the Guest Delight Consumer team, I led a team of 10, working in Python, React, and GraphQL, to build Lyric's direct booking platform, mobile app, and numerous other guest-facing products. Mentored and coached direct reporting engineers as well as other members of the organization.
As a Tech Lead with the Wheelhouse Product from 2016 to 2018, I led a team of 5, working in Ruby and React, to build Wheelhouse's first in class personalize pricing platform.
As the Engineering Manager and Staff Tech Lead of the Guest Delight Consumer team, I led a team of 10, working in Python, React, and GraphQL, to build Lyric's direct booking platform, mobile app, and numerous other guest-facing products. Mentored and coached direct reporting engineers as well as other members of the organization.
Engineering Manager and Front End Lead
June 2015 to March 2016
Acquired by Metric Collective
Managed and led a team of 6 engineers to build Boostable's self-service advertising platform for merchants in React and Scala
Architected and Built Dashboard tool for Boostable's self-service product for marketplace admins
Managed and led a team of 6 engineers to build Boostable's self-service advertising platform for merchants in React and Scala
Architected and Built Dashboard tool for Boostable's self-service product for marketplace admins
Senior Front End Engineer
January 2013 to May 2015
Senior Front End Engineer on Video Publisher Team
Built internal tools for Onavo data analysis
Tech Lead for internal JavaScript Data Visualization Framework
Developed charts and visualizations for Facebook Insights projects
Created Advertising Interfaces for Ads Create Flow
Built internal tools for Onavo data analysis
Tech Lead for internal JavaScript Data Visualization Framework
Developed charts and visualizations for Facebook Insights projects
Created Advertising Interfaces for Ads Create Flow
Web Dev
June 2010 to January 2013
Senior Front End Engineer on Video Publisher Team
Core member of the YouTube’s Web Developer team
Tech Lead and evangelist for the YouTube HTML5 Player.
Creator of the JavaScript API for YouTube iframe embeds.
Accessibility Lead for 508 compliance
Assisted with the development of YouTube Feather, YouTube 3D for HTML5, Live Streaming, Upload Widget, and other various projects.
Member of the YouTube Developer Relations Team
Helped launch and promote YouTube API's along with hosting a weekly YouTube Developer Live channel
Core member of the YouTube’s Web Developer team
Tech Lead and evangelist for the YouTube HTML5 Player.
Creator of the JavaScript API for YouTube iframe embeds.
Accessibility Lead for 508 compliance
Assisted with the development of YouTube Feather, YouTube 3D for HTML5, Live Streaming, Upload Widget, and other various projects.
Member of the YouTube Developer Relations Team
Helped launch and promote YouTube API's along with hosting a weekly YouTube Developer Live channel
Software Dev Engineer
August 2009 to May 2010
Enhanced the Amazon user base ability to gift, by designing and developing a new gift card ordering interface.
Leading various front-end performance initiatives within the company and across multiple teams.
Assisting with site-wide advanced image compression research.
Leading various front-end performance initiatives within the company and across multiple teams.
Assisting with site-wide advanced image compression research.
Engineering Intern
Summer 2008
Developing new features and feature tweaks for YouTube's Discovery team.
Developed the first iterations of the QuickList Toolbar, which is a persistent bar at the bottom of the screen that allows users to more effectively manage and view their QuickLists and PlayLists.
Leading the proposal to make YouTube the world's largest deployment of semantic markup.
Set up analytics and developed a new user interface for YouTube’s click to buy monetization initiatives.
Developed the first iterations of the QuickList Toolbar, which is a persistent bar at the bottom of the screen that allows users to more effectively manage and view their QuickLists and PlayLists.
Leading the proposal to make YouTube the world's largest deployment of semantic markup.
Set up analytics and developed a new user interface for YouTube’s click to buy monetization initiatives.
Technical Yahoo Intern
May 2007 to March 2008
Created widgets for the Yahoo Widget gallery.
Automated the billing reports for all of Search Submit’s content providers and resellers.
Won Best Hack at Yahoo! Internal Hack Day Summer 2007, the details of which are confidential, as this feature was judged innovative enough to be implemented in the future.
Automated the billing reports for all of Search Submit’s content providers and resellers.
Won Best Hack at Yahoo! Internal Hack Day Summer 2007, the details of which are confidential, as this feature was judged innovative enough to be implemented in the future.
3GSM System Tester Intern
Summer 2006
Conducted tests on many of Motorola’s upcoming 3G cell phones
Designed and created all software components of an automatic sim dispenser. Using PHP and MySQL I independently created a web-based system where workers can reserve, check out, and check in sims to use for their testing
Assisted in the creation of the new mobile devices system test website. Gathered and formatted contact and region-specific information for the international regions of our team.
Designed and created all software components of an automatic sim dispenser. Using PHP and MySQL I independently created a web-based system where workers can reserve, check out, and check in sims to use for their testing
Assisted in the creation of the new mobile devices system test website. Gathered and formatted contact and region-specific information for the international regions of our team.
Education
University of Illinois Urbana Champaign
2005-2009
B.S. in Computer Science, minor in Mathematics
GPA: 3.5/4.0
GPA: 3.5/4.0
Skills
React
Node
JavaScript
GraphQL
Python
Ruby
PHP
Talks & Presentations
I Want my LOLCat Videos Faster
A talk about Front-end Performance at YouTube.
PRESENTATION
HTML5, Flash and the Battle for Faster Cat Videos
HTML5; it's new, it's awesome, and it's powerful, but can it take down the champ of video distribution, Flash. Which technology's got the ability to bring cat video to the next level? This talk covers the many challenges of both HTML5 and YouTube adapting to change video distribution on the web.
PRESENTATION
YouTube's iframe Player: The Future of Embedding
YouTube players allow for video playback in web applications. The latest YouTube's embedded iframe player supports both Flash and HTML5 video and exposes a rich API which lets you control the YouTube playback experience. We'll give you details on how the API was developed, and show you how it can power the videos on your own website.
PRESENTATION
Mobile Meow: Bringing YouTube Videos to a Mobile World
This is the story of the glory and struggle of bringing a high quality YouTube experience to the mobile web. Once upon a time there was a web developer who wanted to play videos on the web. So he filmed a cat and wrote a Flash and a HTML5 player. He spent many hours making it work on his favorite desktop browsers and even the one his grandfather still used. People could watch his cat video, he smiled, and the world was good. Then one day someone put a browser in a phone and soon there were many phones with many different browsers. This new set of environments were even harder to develop for and had a slew of new terrifying bugs. The web developer was miserable knowing people couldn't watch his cat video. With much time and effort he figured out many of the secrets needed to combat the evils of the different mobile platforms. Once again people could watch his cat video, he smiled, and the world was good. The end.
PRESENTATION
HTML5 at YouTube: Stories from the Front Line
Is HTML5 ready for production code? Of course it is. This is a look into all the different HTML5 technologies we use in live code at YouTube. We'll have a collection of tips, tricks, and best practices for HTML5 video, the track tag, getUserMedia, and more. Plus a deep dive into Mobile Video Tag development.
PRESENTATION
Dynamic style - manipulating CSS with JavaScript
PUBLICATION