Justin Grant

Hey. This is Justin Grant. I'm a software product manager in the SF Bay Area. My focus: pragmatically bringing consumer-web concepts (ease-of-use, social software, etc.) to the stodgy world of business software.

• Splunk

  Since 2009 I've been at Splunk, a small systems-management software company in San Francisco. I'm responsible for Splunkbase (Splunk's "app store"), Splunk Answers (Splunk's Q&A community), and future social applications I can't talk about yet :-).
  
  I drive Splunk's product-to-Web strategy: ensuring our app store and other community sites are seamlessly integrated into product features, are relevant for business users (not just online-community enthusiasts), and are free of ease-of-use blockers (e.g. installing an app shouldn't require restarting!).
  
  I also founded Splunk's Application Management product line and managed a small, cross-functional team delivering Splunk's "V1.0" Application Management product, which focused on analytics, operational reporting, and troubleshooting for Java Application Servers.

• Job Alchemist

  I've long been interested in fixing the inefficient recruiting business, so in 2009 I signed on with Job Alchemist, an early-stage SF startup building recruiting solutions like Startuply. As a hands-on contributor and advisor, I gathered enough real-world customer knowledge to validate or refute (the latter, as it turned out) my own startup ideas, while having fun being back in the startup lifestyle.

• MSDN and TechNet

  I was PM of msdn.com and technet.com, the Web's largest community sites for developers and IT-Pros. I was responsible for Web Analytics (at terabyte scale!), Social Applications strategy/execution, and building out an "internal SaaS" model to lower editorial and globalization costs. I also drove usability testing, overhauled site navigation across 10M+ pages, and fixed site search.

• Microsoft Server Management Products

  I co-founded the "internal startup" team that built Microsoft's first Application Management product. I ended up running PM for Microsoft's server-management products including Operations Manager (now called SCOM).

• Stockpoint

  I was employee #6 of Stockpoint, a web-based financial information provider. I managed operations, led web development, and scaled out Stockpoint's SaaS offering. Stockpoint was acquired and is now Dow Jones Client Solutions, part of News Corp.

• Ask Jeeves

  I was one of the original engineers on the AskJeeves.com site. I still remember the day our CEO brought the original "butler" art back from our design firm. At the time, I thought: "A butler? That's dumb. No one will like that!". Oops.

• Stack Overflow

  I use answering questions on Stack Overflow as "Nerd Tourism" to keep my techncial skills up to date. For example: MySQL query optimization, Apache ActiveMQ queue APIs, TCP socket I/O in C++ on Linux, ASP.NET data binding, CSS workarounds for Internet Explorer, HTML screen scraping, cross-platform web frameworks, and more.

• FOSSfind.com

  I originally wrote and now maintain fossfind.com, an open-source project directory. It's a mashup of open-source-project data that's optimized for discoverability, simplicity, and ease-of-use.

• Open-Source Contributions

  I'm a regular contributor to OSQA, an open-source community Q&A tool. I occasionally contribute to other projects including MySQL, where I found and patched a nasty SQL-Injection security vulnerability.

other Justin Grants

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