Benjamin Baxter
Software Engineer at Google
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Summary
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Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolBenjamin Baxter is a software engineer with 11 years of experience focused on Android and Android TV platforms, currently working at Google. He has progressed through engineering and managerial roles at Google, shipping production-ready TV modules and contributing to high-profile projects like the Google I/O Android app and Android TV samples. Benjamin blends hands-on mobile development—refactoring legacy code, integrating ExoPlayer, and improving accessibility—with developer advocacy and partner enablement, having helped global partners adopt Android TV best practices. He also teaches as an adjunct professor, bringing practical industry experience into the classroom. His open-source contributions demonstrate a pragmatic attention to code quality (Spotless formatting, Truth assertions, Timber logging) and media playback state management. Comfortable across product, engineering, and developer relations, he excels at taking complex platform features from samples and codelabs into real-world apps.
11 years of coding experience
10 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelors, Mathematics and Computer Science, Bachelors, Mathematics and Computer Science at Northern Kentucky University
Github Skills (13)
kotlin10
javas10
exoplayer10
android10
leanback10
android-tv10
java10
databinding9
android-ui9
coroutines8
testing8
architectures7
architecture7
Programming languages (3)
Github contributions (5)
android/tv-samples
Jul 2020 - Apr 2021
Multiple samples showing best practices in app development on Android TV.
Role in this project:
Mobile Developer (Android)
Mobile Developer (Android)Contributions:1 review, 20 commits, 1 PR in 8 months
Contributions summary:Benjamin primarily contributed to the `android/tv-samples` repository by modifying and improving the Android TV application's functionality and code quality. They added content descriptions for accessibility, formatted the project using Spotless, and moved tests to the appropriate directories. Additionally, they converted assertions to Google's Truth library, refactored code to use Timber for logging, and implemented the initial version of a PlaybackStateMachine.
androidkotlinandroid-tvjavaapp-development
googlearchive/androidtv-Leanback
Jul 2017 - Jan 2019
:tv: Android TV Leanback Support Library sample app
Role in this project:Mobile Developer (Android)
Mobile Developer (Android)Contributions:27 commits, 9 PRs, 16 pushes in 1 year 6 months
Contributions summary:Benjamin primarily focused on updating and refactoring the Android TV Leanback sample application. Their contributions involved migrating to newer support libraries, refactoring components like `PlaybackOverlayFragment`, and integrating the ExoPlayer for media playback. The changes also included updating the build and compile SDK to version 26, demonstrating a focus on maintaining and upgrading the project's dependencies. Furthermore, they removed Picture-in-Picture support.
androidsupport-libraryleanbackandroidtvkotlin
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