Hi beamers, After 5.5 years working on data processing systems at Google, several of these years working on Dataflow and Beam, I am moving on to do something new (also at Google) in the area of programming models for machine learning. Anybody who worked with me closely knows how much I love building programming models, so I could not pass up on the opportunity to build a new one - I expect to have a lot of fun there!
On the new team we very much plan to make things open-source when the time is right, and make use of Beam, just as TensorFlow does - so I will stay in touch with the community, and I expect that we will still work together on some things. However, Beam will no longer be the main focus of my work. I've made the decision a couple months ago and have spent the time since then getting things into a good state and handing over the community efforts in which I have played a particularly active role - they are in very capable hands: - Robert Bradshaw and Ankur Goenka on Google side are taking charge of Portable Runners (e.g. the Portable Flink runner). - Luke Cwik will be in charge of the future of Splittable DoFn. Ismael Mejia has also been involved in the effort and actively helping, and I believe he continues to do so. - The Beam IO ecosystem in general is in very good shape (perhaps the best in the industry) and does not need a lot of constant direction; and it has a great community (thanks JB, Ismael, Etienne and many others!) - however, on Google side, Chamikara Jayalath will take it over. It was a great pleasure working with you all. My last day formally on Beam will be this coming Friday, then I'll take a couple weeks of vacation and jump right in on the new team. Of course, if my involvement in something is necessary, I'm still available on all the same channels as always (email, Slack, Hangouts) - but, in general, please contact the folks mentioned above instead of me about the respective matters from now on. Thanks!
