Resume -- Niniane Wang

Niniane Wang

(updated May 2006)

Create quality software that makes millions of users happy.

9/2003 - present, Software Engineer, Google Inc.

11/2005 - present, Tech lead / manager, confidential project

Created vision for a confidential project. Got it chartered by execs.
Built and led a team of engineers through technical design and implementation, in C++ and Java.

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

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".

7/1998 - 9/2003, Software Design Engineer Lead / Software Design Engineer, Microsoft

1/2001 - 9/2003, Microsoft Flight Simulator

Managed a 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, 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.

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.)

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.

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.

Native in speaking, reading, and writing Mandarin.