Derrick Koo

Automattic

Product Engineer May 2020 – now

Product Engineer with Newspack, a WordPress-based platform serving over 300 publications of all shapes and sizes around the globe. Funded in part by the Google News Initiative, the Knight Foundation and the Lenfest Institute, Newspack’s mission is to help independent news organizations thrive in an algorithmic media world. Responsibilities:

• Build and maintain a fully open-source product suite with best-in-class features and performance, which also readily plugs into the professional software ecosystems newsrooms already rely on.
• Define and refine internal engineering workflows and tooling, balancing both quality and efficiency.
• Collaborate on product strategy with cross-disciplinary teams across Newspack, Automattic, and external partners.
• As Product Engineering team lead from 2022–2024: managed 5–7 product engineers, acted as the team’s primary liaison with non-technical counterparts, and oversaw projects from concept to roadmap to production. (Automattic rotates its team lead roles.)

Selected work

• Principal engineer for Newspack Insights, a new audience-centric analytics dashboard that answers newsrooms’ most important questions about their readers. Built and launched within an experimental 30-day, AI-driven development sprint.
• Product engineer for Audience Management, an ambitious multi-year initiative to bring top-of-the-line audience tools to every publication—including real-time audience segmentation and targeted messaging, customizable access control for premium users, email newsletter integrations, secure signup flows, and frictionless payment processing.

10up

Lead Front-End Engineer Jun 2018 – Apr 2020

Senior Front-End Engineer Jun 2016 – Jun 2018

Engineering discipline lead responsible for defining best practices for performance, security, accessibility, and front-end development, with specialization in mobile web and React Native app development. Technical lead or individual contributor for over 40 distinct client projects in a fast-paced agency environment.

• Mentored engineers, fostered technical education, and facilitated skillsharing across 10up.
• Oversaw rotating project engineering teams comprised of 2–4 engineers.
• Shipped web and mobile app code for clients large and small, including: Google, Facebook, Microsoft, The New York Times, POLITICO, FiveThirtyEight, ESPN, StoryCorps, GE, author Dan Brown, and many more.
• Authored technical requirements and documentation, both internal and public-facing.
• Produced detailed work estimates.

Accomplishments

Nominees and winners of 10up’s annual "Uppy" awards are chosen by popular vote across the company. Awards won:

• The Teacher, 2019: “Awarded to three 10uppers who exemplify our ‘service to colleagues’ value by helping other 10uppers learn and grow their craft.”
• Best Project: Engineering, 2017: “Awarded to a project team that overcame an especially challenging set of technical implementation requirements.”

The New Yorker

Senior Digital Production Manager Jul 2014 – Jun 2016

Editorial Production Associate Jun 2009 - Jul 2014

Joined the magazine’s storied Makeup Department as an editorial intern straight out of journalism school and helped transform it from analog-era print shop to multimedia publishing hub.

• Devised internal publishing tooling for editorial print and digital editions.
• Supervised editorial web and digital production teams.
• Product development for the magazine’s first mobile and e-book editions on iOS, Google Play, and Amazon app stores.
• Site development, publishing workflows, data migrations, and occasional blogging for newyorker.com’s second, WordPress-based iteration.
• Built special multimedia features for the website and mobile apps.
• Editorial print magazine production: typesetting, content layouts, proof and page assembly.

Accomplishments

Nominees and winners of Condé Nast’s annual company-wide awards are chosen by senior managers and editors.

• Condé Nast Innovator of the Year, 2012: Awarded to The New Yorker’s Makeup Department for our work developing and launching the magazine’s first mobile app editions.