Published in Expedia Group Technology·Feb 14Four Key Differences Between “Online Travel” and “Online Shopping” E-commerceHow Expedia Group scales for 1.26 quadrillion different travel product variations — Did you know that Amazon has an estimated 700 billion different product variants it could sell? That’s based on some simple math, multiplying 350 million unique products by the maximum of 2,000 product variations (e.g., product color and size). Most products will have far less than 2,000 product variations —…Software Engineering8 min readSoftware Engineering8 min read
Published in Expedia Group Technology·Oct 20, 2020Are These Six Software Anti-patterns Killing Your Delivery?Tips for better delivery cycles with better output and a happier teams — Engineers understand that software needs constant care and feeding to avoid inefficient delivery practices. Stakeholders expect timely delivery of their new features and capabilities, and can get frustrated at long delivery cycles. …Software Development8 min readSoftware Development8 min read
Published in Expedia Group Technology·Oct 24, 2019Knowing the Value of Your APIAll APIs are not created equal Introduction In 2002, Jeff Bezos sent all Amazon employees an email that mandated all teams expose their data and functionality through service interfaces. In this email, his closing sentence said “ Anyone who doesn’t do this will be fired. Thank you; have a nice day…API3 min readAPI3 min read
Published in HomeAway Tech Blog·May 9, 2019Member-onlyFighting Back Against DDoS AttacksEngineering resilience into your applications and services — If you search for DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks online, you will be surprised at how common they have become. 2018 saw the largest DDoS attack to date on Github at 1.35Tbps; fortunately, it only affected availability of their service for around ten minutes. …Cybersecurity7 min readCybersecurity7 min read
Published in HomeAway Tech Blog·Jan 23, 2019The Human Understanding Path to SuccessPart 3 of 3 — Owning your high tech destiny in the new world — Engineers must develop a deeper understanding of human behavior when building the software of tomorrow. From self driving cars to digital assistants, learning human behavior may not necessarily be top of mind for most engineers. In my first two blogs we looked at how rapid changes in technology, including Artificial…Careers8 min readCareers8 min read
Published in HomeAway Tech Blog·Jan 15, 2019Machines Are Changing the Software LandscapePart 2 of 3 — Owning your high tech destiny in the new world — My youngest son was sitting on the couch playing a game on his iPad. I asked, “What is the name of that game?” He replied “Slither.io and I am playing AI mode”. Interested, I asked him, what is AI? He replied, “I am not sure what AI stands for, but…Artificial Intelligence8 min readArtificial Intelligence8 min read
Published in HomeAway Tech Blog·Jan 8, 2019The Recent Evolution of Software EngineeringPart 1 of 3 — Owning your high tech destiny in the new world — Just over 20 years ago, software engineers were building business applications deployed on desktop computers with thick clients. Java was 3 years old, Netscape was the most common web browser, and Amazon was a 3-year-old online bookstore. If you had a fast internet connection at home, it was most likely…Tech7 min readTech7 min read
