We’re excited to continue our Ask a Googler series with our next guest, Hongzhi Chen, a software engineer on the Google Maps team.
Many of you reached out with some great questions for Hongzhi. Before we dive into those, we asked him a few questions we thought you’d be interested in to get to know him a bit more. As we shared in our previous post, Hongzhi works on Google Maps features like badges, emails, and contribution stats. Read on to learn more about him.
Are you a Local Guide? Why or why not?
Yes, I am a Local Guide Level 7. Engineers need to test the features they build many times so I repeatedly contribute and end up at level seven. Just kidding, I am super passionate about keeping the geographic data in my neighborhood correct and up to date, so that other people in the neighborhood will benefit from it, and vice versa.
What’s your favorite type of information to contribute on Google Maps?
I like to fix the factual data on Google Maps, e.g. place opening hours, business openings and closure information.
If you could visit anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?
Xinjiang, China. It has probably the most beautiful grassland in the world, great nature, great food and great culture. My friends and I planned to go there in spring 2020, but the pandemic made it very difficult.
What’s the one question your friends and family always ask you about working at Google/on Google Maps?
“Why doesn’t X work? Why can’t Google Maps do this?” (And then they propose an idea.)
Local Guides Q&A with Hongzhi
Editor’s Note: Some questions submitted by Local Guides below have been edited for length and/or clarity.
Shola from Nigeria asked: Alongside our monthly email report of our Local Guides’ contributions, can we also get a report on how many of our reviews and photos have been marked private (if any) to know if we are at risk of being suspended or not?
Answer: Thank you for this suggestion! The best way to share this idea with our team is to submit via the Idea Exchange here on Connect.
Falguni from India, Guiding Star, asked: When are the contributions calculated for email updates?
Answer: For the monthly email report, it is calculated at the beginning of each month for the month that just passed. Impact email contributions are calculated on a running job daily.
Ermes from Italy, Connect Moderator, asked: I know that many Local Guides are worried because they don’t receive the “old” email about reaching milestones and new levels. Is Google thinking about restoring that kind of communication?
Answer: Yes, we will be re-launching the emails that celebrate you reaching a new level soon. (This was a temporary pause.)
Tess from Belgium asked: Which contribution stats or badges would you add if it were solely up to you?
Answer: I’d be interested in adding badges for people who made the most contributions to their neighborhood/city, especially Local Guides who contribute a lot to the factual data correctness of their neighborhood and helped a lot of people to navigate.
Lalo from Mexico, Guiding Star, asked: What is the best part of being a Googler?
Answer: It is very interesting to work with the smartest people in the world with various cultures and backgrounds. Also, the opportunity to travel around the world to understand our billions of users and build the best product for everyone.
Feliciana from Indonesia, Connect Moderator and Guiding Star, asked: As a software engineer for Google Maps, are you focused on front end or back end development?
Answer: Generally, the front end engineers focus on the visible user interfaces (UIs) that users interact with everyday to deliver the smoothest user experience and the back end engineers focus on the data flow in various components in Google system to make sure that we can support the feature in a second level response while the users’ personal data are properly protected. I am actually a full stack developer; I need to work on both sides to make sure the features work end to end.
Luigi from Italy, Connect Moderator, asked: What’s your best or worst (you choose) project idea you have come up in your 20% time (time Googlers are encouraged to spend working on a passion project)?
Answer: Google Maps users like the Place Q&A feature a lot, even though it is Android only. I was contributing my 20% time to figure out a solution for iOS but I am no longer working on that project but we hope to see that change in the future.
Thomas from the Czech Republic asked: Is it possible to learn the number of my photos which are featured on Google Maps? If not, will you consider this feature?
Answer: Thank you for suggesting this to consider! The best way to share this idea with our team is to submit via the Idea Exchange here on Connect.
Stay tuned to hear more about the next Googler in our series soon! Want to see other posts in our Ask a Googler series? Read previous posts below:
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