Steven La

Led the Variables feature launch, enabling design tokens and stateful prototypes.

• Designed a system for defining and resolving computed values in the C++ engine.
• Defined rules for source-of-truth vs derived data in the file data model.
• Worked full-stack (C++, Typescript, Ruby) to allow Variables to be published.
• Ensured variables worked with existing features like Props, Styles, and branching.
• Added a performant atom-based data framework between C++ and Typescript.
• Built a fast drag-and-drop spreadsheet-like editor for Variable values.

Contributed to Component Props for richer and simpler shared components.

• Defined new invariant patterns in the multiplayer system to mitigate conflicts.
• Built on-canvas C++ UI to mass multi-select component sublayers.

Led the internal design system, attaining WCAG 2.2 AA compliance for the company.

• Prioritized and organized ~15 component launches and migrations.
• Built UX idiosyncracies (e.g. focus management) into the API and test framework.

Led a team of 6 engineers that built and managed build/deploy systems, developer tools, performance tools, core APIs, and application architecture.

• Fostered a cooperative culture through intentional hiring, 1:1s, and mentorship.
• Planned roadmaps balancing business needs, improving tech, and happiness.
• Led technical architecture for the IG webapp built on Facebook infrastructure.

Ported Bloks, an internal cross-platform programming framework, to React.js

• Grew initial framework adoption to 7 products across IG and FB in a year.
• Enabled Voting Info Center to launch on web in 2 weeks built from existing code.
• Built a renderer that converted custom UI trees and flex layouts to React UI.
• Wrote a Lisp parser and execution environment in JS to handle interactivity.
• Allowed code written for mobile to be reused with minimal changes on the web.

Built a declarative visibility tracking framework to log view impressions.

• Simplified impressions code by replacing scroll callbacks with a rule-based API.
• Enabled IG product to price organic impressions and potential ad impressions.
• Built debug tools to overlay impression state over UI to validate accuracy.
• Allowed logging more sophisticated impression metrics, enabling ads billing.
• Adapted library to product uses cases, like infinite scrolling and animations.

Improved feed performance with a custom virtual scroller component.

• Improved page load times by 62%, impressions by 58%, and engagement by 6%.
• Unified all of IG's lists, grids, and horizontal scrolls to clean up the codebase.
• Allows items to be arbitrarily sized without costly synchronous measurements.

Shipped Instagram's iconic photo filters with WebGL to 1.3M uploads per month.

• Ported existing OpenGL shaders to WebGL for identical cross-platform uploads.
• Designed WebGL abstractions in React to enable contributions by non-experts.

Introduced React to the company and grew the internal React community.

• Added build systems, devops playbooks, design systems, and test tools.
• Built an Electron tool to generate React components from Illustrator SVGs.

Contributed to rule-based data retention to comply with legal regulations.

• Built the frontend to create, manage, and report on retention policies.
• Awarded patent for the backend (US Patent No US10585854B2).