Niniane Wang
(updated May 2006)
Work Experience
9/2003 - present, Google Inc.
11/2005 - present, Engineering Manager, Lively by Google
- Created vision, got project chartered.
- Built and led a team of engineers through technical design and
implementation. Launched as lively.com.
11/2004 - 10/2005, Tech lead, Gmail Ads
- Led a team of engineers to improve Gmail revenue while maintaining a
positive user experience. Launched 15 experiments, with a cumulative
revenue improvement of 140%.
- Oversaw technical direction, scheduling, feature decisions, and coordination with other groups.
- Brainstormed and implemented in C++ and Java various techniques of text
processing and information retrieval.
- Co-inventor on 3 pending patents.
9/2003 - 11/2004, Software engineer, Google Desktop Search
- Served as one of the first engineers on the project, from initial
design through launching the public beta.
- Contributed leadership experience toward scheduling, feature
prioritization, bug triage, staffing.
- Designed and implemented in C++ key components including query processing,
instant messenger capture, status pings, and snippet generation. Sole
engineer of the Sidebar during v1.
- Co-inventor on 19 pending patents.
- Won a Google Founder's Award for my work.
1/2005 - 3/2005, Software engineer (concurrent "20% project"), Movie
Showtimes Onebox
- Worked on the launch of theatre showtimes & reviews on google.com.
- Developed in C++ algorithms for query parsing and ranking of movie clusters.
Throughout Google experience
- Served on the Hiring Committee which makes offer approval or
rejection on interview candidates.
- Screened 10 - 20 engineering resumes per week for phone screen approval.
- Primary engineer responsible for designing the process for Windows
engineering hiring.
- Recognized strong interviewer for engineering candidates and
leadership/management candidates.
- Portrayed in HR marketing campaign full-page ad in the New York Times (pdf), Google recruiting video, monster.com
Q&A article (link), Google
China blog entry on "behind-the-scenes heroic engineers", CNN television segment.
7/1998 - 9/2003, Microsoft Corp.
1/2001 - 9/2003, Software Design Engineer Lead,
Microsoft Flight Simulator
- Managed a sub-team of developers through the shipping of Flight
Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight. Oversaw feature design, scheduling, and
development.
- Designed and developed the dynamic weather system, the main selling point
of Flight Simulator 2004, through the entire ship cycle. Press reviewers
describe it
as "breathtaking", "amazing", "a breakthrough".
- Created an innovative new technology for rendering clouds. Presented this
work at the SIGGRAPH Conference in July 2003.
- Developed a service that supplies streaming real-time weather
information so users can download and fly in current weather conditions.
- Drove performance analysis and optimization for Flight Simulator 2002.
Reduced stutters from hundreds per minute to virtually nil, and dramatically
increased framerates.
- Managed long-term careers of developers on my team.
- Acted as go-to person for other functional groups (Program Management,
Test, Art) for numerous areas within the product.
- Exercised strong cross-group coordination skills with other groups at
Microsoft (DirectX, MSN Gaming Zone) in coordinating work, identifying
dependencies, and resolving conflicts.
6/1998 - 1/2001, Software Engineer, Microsoft Sports and
Racing Games
- Designed, scheduled, and implemented various areas of a racing game for
PC and Xbox, including VCR, event logging system, UI, standalone
track editor, tools, and input system.
- Developed the artistic pipeline process. Collaborated with other
functional areas to define feature set and scope.
Education
- M.S., Computer Science, University of Washington, 2001. GPA 3.9.
(While working fulltime at Microsoft.)
- B.S., Computer Science, California Institute of Technology, 1998. GPA
3.8. (Graduated at age 18.)
Skills
- Proficient in C++, Java.
- Experience with both Windows and Unix environments.
- Experience in graphics, games, win32, and informational retrieval.
Publications
- Wang, N., Wade, B. Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow (and
Rain). Game Programming Gems 5, Charles River Media. 2005.
- Wang, N. Realistic and Fast Cloud Rendering, Journal of
Graphics Tools. Publication in 2004.
- Wang, N. Let There Be Clouds, Game Developers Magazine.
January 2004.
- Ishii, H., Page, S., Wang, N. 1999. A Day at the Beach:
Human Agents Self-Organizing on the Sand Pile. Advances in Complex
Systems. Vol 2, Issue 1. p 37 - 64.
Conferences
- Paper reviewer for Eurographics, 2006.
- Paper reviewer for Computer Graphics International, 2006.
- Wang, N. Rendering Falling Rain and Snow. ACM SIGGRAPH 2004.
- Wang, N. Realistic and Fast Cloud Rendering in Computer
Games. ACM SIGGRAPH 2003.
- Niniane Wang, 2004. Game Developers Conference (GDC). San Jose,
March 2004.
Patents
- 3 pending patents for work on Gmail ads.
- 19 pending patents for work on Google Desktop Search.
- Niniane Wang. Dynamic Weather Simulation. Filed November 2003.
- Niniane Wang, Michael Gilbert. Weather Themes. Filed January 2004.
Spoken Languages
Native in speaking, reading, and writing Mandarin.