Michael: Live Search Profile

Search Development Lead

Some people have pictures of their children on their desk, you have photos of your motorcycle...

I don't have any kids and keeping the pictures that are sold with the frames wouldn't really be appropriate. Maybe if they bore some resemblance to me...

Why is being a Dev Lead on the Search team a great role?

I get to enable several talented people to do great things.

Do you feel that being a manager takes away from being technical?

On the contrary, most of the discussions and decisions I participate in require me to be extremely technical. And as a lead, I need to be able to represent my reports fairly at meetings as well as relate to their work and experiences which is hard to do if you lack technical skills or depth. Also, all of the leads still write some code, whether it's for production (release), internal tools, experiments or incubation projects (prototypes).

Are you headed down the manager or technical path?

I'm headed down the managerial path but I'm still growing technical skills. A big benefit of being on the Search team is that my manager (development manager) and his manager (general manager) also have development backgrounds, so they can relate to my experiences and situations.

What's your favorite query?

I don't have one. But I'm always curious to see how "las vegas hotel reviews" does.