Eric Bogs
Introduction
I'm driven by technology and by media (art, music, stories), and my passions tend to lie in the intersection of the two. I love connecting creators, curators and consumers, and by solving impossible problems with technology.
I am a technical leader based in New York. My primary strengths are web application architecture and performance, front-end technology, internationalization and design. I have been building web applications since 1996, and in the last 16 years I have enjoyed building and launching a variety of businesses and products at Google, Yahoo!, Etsy, Scient and elsewhere.
My formal technical education focused on interface design and multithreaded application design at Caltech. My formal artistic education centered around typography and letterform design at Art Center.
Recent focus has been on building and leading engineering teams, empowering small teams to rapidly build, launch, and iterate on products. Technical strengths are on web application architecture and performance, internationalization, mobile development and front-end engineering.
Experience
2010—present
Senior Engineering Manager
Etsy
Etsy is the world's handmade marketplace. Focus has been on leading front-end engineering and internationalization teams.
2010
Co-founder
Wingman
Wingman was a "Foursquare for flirting" mobile dating app that I developed and launched with a friend. iPhone app, web app, PHP/MySQL backend built atop AWS. Launched to much fanfare in Sept 2010 in Seattle, several thousand users.
2007—2010
Technical Lead / Senior User Interface Software Engineer
Technical Lead within Google Docs, focusing on Google Spreadsheets and Google Forms. Created many app features, front-end performance improvements, as well as the mobile version of Spreadsheets [more]
2005—2007
Front End Engineering Manager
Yahoo! Sports
Lead team to handle redesign of Yahoo! Sports editorial site, integrating UI and visual overhaul, new LSM site structure, and new module management system. Authored several patents relating to sports data visualization and editorial content/statistics integration. Built Turin 2007 Olympic Site. Developed Flash Gamechannel application and Gamepass Live Video Streaming application. Created Fantasy Profiles.
2004—2005
Web Developer
Yahoo! International User Experience & Design
Lead Web Developer for many Yahoo! properties and projects across Europe. Internationalized Yahoo! Personals across UK, FR, DE. Revamped Yahoo! Mobile UK site (moved to LSM layout, brought in feed content). Redesigned Yahoo! Travel UK, FR, DE sites to integrate with new booking providers and improve accessibility.
2003—2004
Freelance Consulting
Several high-profile projects, including developing country-specific sites for a multinational bank, and a high-end content-managed intranet site for a large multinational corporation. More...
2002—2004
Editor, Web Developer
Print and online editor for XY Magazine, a monthly American culture and politics magazine for young gay men. In addition to print work [from interviews to layouts], managed several drastic redesigns of site and sub-sites.
1999—2002
Front-End Technology Lead
San Francisco, CA & London, UK
scient.com
Global lead for the front-end technology group at eBusiness consulting firm, Scient. Lead project teams to build several successful eBusinesses [eLuxury.com, WineShopper.com], Enterprise clients [Royal & SunAlliance, AT&T, Wells Fargo], as well as critical internal projects. Lead company-wide recruiting and training programs. Scient merged with iXL and SBI to become Avenue A Razorfish and Framfab in London. More...
1996—1999
Freelance Webdesign
Produced and managed a large portfolio of sites using DHTML, Java applets, C-based CGI scripts, rich layouts and various multimedia technologies. More...
1998—1999
Java/CGI Programmer, Web Developer
Summer intern and part-time employee at Paracel Inc., a bioinformatics company that specializes in high-performance genetic data and text analysis systems. Work focused on client/server application design, and graphical Java applet design.
1998
Java/CGI Programmer, Web Developer
Worked with Cega Ltd., one of the UK's premiere webdesign and internet consultancy firms. Projects centred on Java applets & applications. Cega later became RTSE UK. More...
Expertise
- PHP, web application design
- application performance & scaling
- Javascript, AJAX application design
- CSS and graphic design
- Smarty
- jQuery, Google Closure, YUI and similar JS frameworks
- MySQL, Propel and other ORMs
- HTML5, all flavors of HTML and browser limitations
- layered semantic markup, graceful degradation
- Amazon Web Services
- Java, JHTML, JSP
- internationalization, localization & translation
- accessibility
- search engine optimization techniques
- Flash, ActionScript
- most internet standards and technologies
- Android and iPhone application development, Objective-C
- mobile design/wireless technologies
- Perl
- Python
- Postgres, MongoDB
- XSLT, XML
- Asp.NET, Interwoven Teamsite
- Flex
Front-End and Internationalization Engineering Lead at Etsy.
Technical Lead at Google. Launched mobile version of Google Spreadsheets. Built up Google Forms team, launched new UI and features. Developed front-end recruiting guidelines.
Front-end Engineering Manager at Yahoo. Managed several high-profile projects with on-time delivery. Developed training programs, recruiting guidelines, community knowledge sharing.
Global lead for webdev group at Scient. Resourced projects, developed recruiting guidelines, training programs. Lead several project teams for large multinational corporate clients.
Managed team of freelance and staff writers and photographers at XY Magazine. Planned issues, editorial budgets, and ensured delivery to printer.
Am thoroughly organized, and always keep a big-picture view of progress and deadlines, whilst focusing on quality delivery. I pride myself on open, honest and realistic team and project management. More...
Experienced and expert in most commercial multimedia packages, including Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, Flash, Illustrator, Premiere. QuarkExpress. Font creation tools.
Fluent in electronic music production, remixing and mastering (Ableton Live, Logic, Acid Pro, Mixmeister).
Strong design, layout and graphic production sensibilities and methodologies, both online and print.
Strong editorial skills, including style, spelling, grammar, syntax, and punctuation rules.
Experience in building multilingual sites and content management systems.
Acute awareness of language, content display, content input and character set issues.
Strong language skills. Strong understanding of US/UK language nuances. Conversational German, some Spanish, some French. Well-traveled.
More technical specifics here.
3 patents filed.
Education
Caltech
Bachelor of Science in Engineering & Applied Science [Computer Science] from the California Institute of Technology.
Art Center
Completed several courses at the Art Center College of Design, focusing on Design Principles and Typography & Typeface Design.
References available upon request.
Last updated: 21 May 2012.