About me
Skills
Projects
Contact
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Credits

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Hi, I'm Himanshu.

I’m a native New Yorker and former Senior Software Engineer at Google. I spent 4 years in Learning & Education at Google - primarily working on different parts of YouTube. Previously I spent 2 years in Google Cloud Logging. Right now I'm working on some self-directed projects in the gaming space.

I value rigorous engineering, creative problem solving, and helping others become the best they can be.

When I’m not building, I enjoy Weight training, poi spinning, and making videos. I also spend a lot of time enjoying single-player games. You can check out my list of games here.

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Skills

What I use, next to what I shipped with it.

Frontend & UI

  • TypeScript
  • React
  • Angular
  • CSS & animation
  • Android / iOS

Web and mobile UI for YouTube's Ask button and Ask YouTube search. Also, this site! from scratch.

AI products

  • Gemini
  • Prompt design
  • Evals
  • Streaming UX
  • Genkit

LLM features from prototype to production at YouTube — plus QuizBot and Gaming Wrapped on my own time.

Backend & data

  • Node.js
  • Java
  • Serving infra
  • Firestore
  • Data pipelines

Data pipelines for YouTube Courses and Quizzes; Log streaming for GCP's Logs Explorer.

Reliability

  • Monitoring & SLOs
  • Incident response
  • Feature flags
  • Staged rollouts

On-call for AI features sitting in front of YouTube Ask and Search. Commanded incident response for 10+ severe incidents.

Leading

  • Team lead
  • Mentoring
  • Roadmaps
  • PM & design collab

Led the teams behind Quiz posts, Youtube's Ask button, Ask YouTube Search prototyping, from design docs through launch.

Off the clock

  • CrossFit
  • Poi spinning
  • Video making
  • Game design
  • Testing out coffee shops

Playing through my backlog of old games on my TrimUI Brick at the moment

and to navigate

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  • YouTube Ask Button

    The YouTube Ask Button lets users to engage acitvely with video content.

    I was a Tech lead and I IC contributing to the project across its entire lifecycle, from conceptualization to implementation to deployment. I worked on Designs, implementing the web and mobile UI, implementing privacy-compliant logging, the serving infrastructure, and model quality.

    We were able to build a tool with over 30M Monthly Active Users that:

    • Improved user engagement and satisfcation by providing a deeper learning experience
    • Enhanced the value proposition of YouTube Premium, driving growth
    • Positioned Youtube & Google as an innovative leader in AI-powered education

  • Ask YouTube

    Ask YouTube improves Youtube search quality for queries that do not have one right video answer.

    I was a lead prototyping engineer on the feature and supported a team of engineers in delivering it. I owned large parts of the client experience end‑to‑end and drove the reliability bar for a brand‑new, AI‑powered surface sitting in front of one of the most‑used search boxes on the internet — while contributing to answer quality and the moment‑to‑moment user experience.

    I also built the underlying telemetry infrastructure and playbook to support launching at Youtube scale

  • YouTube Quiz posts

    The YouTube Quiz Posts feature allows content creators to add interactive quizzes to their videos (like this one!), fostering audience engagement and participation.

    I led a team to deliver the complete creator and viewer experience across the creator studio and youtube apps, as well as the website.

    • Helped creators by giving them new tools to assess audience understanding and encourage active learning
    • Increased viewer engagement with a more interactive learning experience
    • Demonstrated YouTube's commitment to supporting educational content

  • GCP Logging UI

    Simplifying enterprise-level troubleshooting with an intuitive logs viewer

    The Google Cloud Platform Logging UI lets businesses monitor and analyze application logs within the Google Cloud ecosystem.

    I worked on designing and implementing large parts of the UI to improve performance and build high priority customer-facing features. Namely:

    • Logs histograms
    • Tail -f style log streaming
    • Time-based filtering
    • AngularJS Angular 9 migration

    This project demanded close attention to user needs, translating ambigious user asks into actionable insights a well-thought-out UI.

    I also provided oncall support, ensuring reliability and performance for enterprise users.

    Performance & reliability: virtualized lists, chunked fetching, and memoized selectors to stay under latency budgets; error budgets with alerting; oncall rotations and postmortems feeding a clear reliability roadmap.

  • YouTube Learning Journeys

    Building the infrastructure for a transformative learning experience on YouTube

    The YouTube Learning platform provides users with tools to construct a dedicated learning journey on Youtube.. I supported the team across the entire stack, from the data pipeline to the serving infrastructure to the front-end UI.

    A significant aspect of this project was getting buy-in from leadership for a more "out there" experience on Youtube, which I helped through prototyping, and many, many meetings.

    I am particularly proud of this project for its innovative approach to integrating learning into the YouTube ecosystem.

  • QuizBot.games

    A 20‑Questions game that guesses the video game you’re thinking of

    Think of a game; the bot asks smart yes/no questions and tries to guess it. Built as a modern web arcade combining a React UI with an API that enforces game rules and tracks state.

  • Gaming Wrapped

    Upload your play history → get a shareable, AI‑generated year‑in‑review

    Drop in a CSV (e.g., HowLongToBeat/PlayTracker exports) and get a personalized slideshow with your highlights, narrative, and stats.

    • Next.js + Genkit (Gemini) server flows; React UI; Tailwind
    • Includes Shareable public link with social‑ready sections

  • Synapse Video Editor

    Timeline editing, Remotion‑powered rendering, and a smooth creator workflow

    A web‑first video editor with desktop packaging that blends precise timeline interactions with programmatic rendering. Built for creators to stitch clips, integrate animated code snippets, and export polished videos.

    I built Synapse to support myself with creative video editing needs for game devlogs

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Let's Connect!

I'm always excited to collaborate on new projects where I can make a meaningful impact. Feel free to reach out to me via email or LinkedIn.

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Sharing My Journey

I like to share my experiences and learnings from the world. While my blog is currently on hiatus, you can explore my previous posts covering topics such as:

Check out more on my blog here

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