Google Australia’s 700 engineers have a new leader in the form of Anil Sabharwal, vice president of product at the digital giant’s headquarters in the US.
Sabharwal will replace director of engineering Alan Noble - a Fellow of Engineers Australia - who is departing the Australian operation after 11 years. Noble, an electrical and electronics engineer, has led Google Australia since 2007, growing a team of engineers from 20 to 700. But his future plans lie elsewhere, in developing and applying technology for the benefit of the planet’s oceans via his non-profit organisation, AusOcean.
However, Nobel’s replacement is no stranger to Australia. Despite recently relocating to Sydney for this new role from Google HQ to lead the company’s “global efforts in personal communications and photos”, Sabharwal, a Canadian-born Australian said he has returned home.
The new engineering lead joined Google Australia in 2009 and worked with the company for four years before moving to San Francisco in 2013. There, Sabharwal led the team that conceived, built, and launched Google Photos two years later. And he’s clearly here to make Australia a base for the image storing platform, according to IT News.
“The technology that has developed into Google Maps was first invented by an Australian start-up acquired by Google, and to this day Google Australia hosts one of the biggest Google Maps engineering teams in the world,” the company said.
“Google Australia also plans to host the product team working on Google Photos, drawing on Google’s deep machine learning expertise from around the world and transferring those skills to Australian engineers.”
Sabharwal revealed that Google Photos has “grown tremendously in the last five years”. In fact, it has over 500 million monthly active users who upload more than a billion photos and videos every day and is the company’s fastest-ever growing product.
“Australia has some of the most talented engineers in the world, and our Sydney office will continue to work on efforts that make big impact at a global scale,” he said.
Image via The Verge.