George Liu
New York
Summary
- Engineering Leader with 14 years of experience in demanding environments focused on producing cutting-edge systems for information technology.
- Skilled in directing development with creative and performance-oriented approach.
- Well-organized and customer-focused with proven skills in project/process management and team leadership.
- Extensive hands-on experience on building and scaling mobile applications
Overview
14
14
years of professional experience
Work History
Head of Search
Snapchat
New York
01.2025 - Current
- Led a 22-person full-stack organization across three specialized teams: Backend (Infra), Mobile (UX), and Machine Learning
- Supported and developed 2 engineering managers (backend/ml) and several senior/staff ICs, providing strategic oversight for end-to-end search experience
- Owned search ecosystem powering discovery for 1 billion MAU, architected multi-year search roadmap achieving 3x in Content Discovery, 2x in Music Search, and 2x in Lens Search within a year
- Empowered cross-functional partner teams with robust Search API, enabling seamless integration of search capabilities for diverse internal and external use cases
- Directed a high-priority infrastructure initiative that achieved $5M USD in annual savings through aggressive query optimization and tiered storage strategies
Engineering Manager II
Pinterest
San Francisco
09.2021 - 03.2024
- Support 15+ full-stack Engineers and Engineering Manager to build Social Products including Comments, Reactions, Mentions as well as other engagement channels to optimize user engagement/retention at Pinterest
- Increased Comments and Reactions 5X and doubled social engaged sessions and WAU over 2 years
- Doubled team size in 1 year, expanding scope to include Following and Profile features
- Led initiatives to build Creator-Centered Community on Pinterest
- DRI for surge investment to create sustainable growth trajectory for company
- Revamped calibration and performance evaluation system for entire Creator Org
Staff Software Engineer, Tech Lead Manager
Facebook
Menlo Park
01.2016 - 09.2021
- Built and supported a team of 8 engineers at WhatsApp to build highly reliable and scalable iOS infrastructure serving more than 330 million users
- Founding member of Marketplace Seller team and led a team of 6 engineers to build the product from 0 to 1 in less than 6 months and gained 5 million DAUs and 1000 power sellers in the first month of launch
- Founding member of Facebook Groups Team, helped jump start the initiative and drove MAUs to 1 Billion by creating a variety of products including Groups Connect, Discovery, Creation, Local Vertical, etc
- Led Better Engineering efforts across WhatsApp Consumer Org in all aspects of re-platformization, code modernization, performance, app size and documentation, etc
- Introduced cutting edge technologies such as ComponentKit and GraphQL to WhatsApp team which increased the productivity of engineers by 30%
- Partnered with development team to drive product development, application support plans, prototype programs, and roadmap creation for teams
- Directed internship program at Facebook, coaching and supporting internship managers to enhance their development and effectiveness
- Collaborated with customers for needs analysis and proposal development, producing roadmaps and cost estimates for Groups Team
Education
Master of Science - Computer Science
New York University
New York, NY05-2011
Bachelor of Science - Computer Science
Northeastern University
Shenyang, China05-2009
Skills
- Search
- Data analysis
- Machine learning
- Distributed System
- Mobile Development
- Project/Process Management
- Product Growth
- Team Building/Leading
- Social Networking
Timeline
Head of Search
Snapchat
01.2025 - Current
Engineering Manager II
Pinterest
09.2021 - 03.2024
Staff Software Engineer, Tech Lead Manager
Facebook
01.2016 - 09.2021
Master of Science - Computer Science
New York University
Bachelor of Science - Computer Science
Northeastern University