Superheroes are well known for wearing capes, fighting villains and looking to save the world from evil. There also are superheroes that quietly choose to use their super powers to explain technology to new users, maintain community forums, write blog posts, speak at events, host video series, create demos, share sample code and more. All in the name of helping other developers become more successful by learning new skills, delivering better apps, and ultimately enhancing their careers. At Google, we refer to the latter category of superheroes as Google Developer Experts or “GDEs” for short.
The Google Developer Experts program is a global network of deeply experienced technology experts, thought leaders and influencers who actively support developer communities around the world, sharing their knowledge and enthusiasm for a wide range of topic areas from Android to Angular to Google Assistant to Google Cloud – and of course, Google Workspace. Mindful that all GDEs are volunteers who not only give their time freely to support others, they also help improve our products by offering their insightful feedback, heavily testing new features often before they are released, all the while helping expand both use cases and audiences along the way.
With the Google Workspace GDE community including members from more than a dozen countries around the world, we wanted to ask Google Workspace Developer experts what excites them about building on Google Workspace, and why they do what they do as our superheroes helping others become better Google Workspace developers. Here’s what a few of these experts had to say:
“Workspace has allowed me to create innovative solutions for teacher workflows that save them significant time and/or allow teachers to use workspace more effectively with their students.”- Alice Keeler (@alicekeeler), Kansas, US
“There's no learning curve for users and it's hard to think of a problem you cannot solve with Google Apps Script.”- Amit Agarwal (@labnol), India
“The accessibility and ubiquity of Google Workspace, and more specifically customization with Apps Script, has kept me working (and in work!) as a freelance Apps Script developer since 2013!”- Andrew Roberts (@andrewroberts6), Llanwrda, Wales, UK
“There are two things I love about Google Workspace. First, everything is in the cloud, so it's accessible anywhere and easily shared. And second, the integrations between different Workspace tools and third-party tools are super easy to work with. My data can move automatically between different applications and save me from tedious manual workflows.”- Ben Collins (@benlcollins), East Coast, US
“Workspace allows anyone with an idea to create impactful solutions to solving problems, and I love showing beginners with little or no coding experience that they are empowered to build digital solutions!”- Cleo Espiritu (@cinfourthirds), Canada
“I love Google Workspace due to Google Apps Script. It has been a 100% serverless platform since 2009 for automation, extension and integration. I have developed many personal and work applications.”- Ivan Kutil (@ivankutil), Prague, Czech Republis
“With Add-Ons and Apps Script, Google Workspace goes above and beyond in enabling a customized experience across the most common professional tools - and makes them accessible regardless of the device I'm using.”- Jeremy Glassenberg (@jglassenberg), San Francisco, CA
“With Google Workspace we can all become both smarter and more productive. The joy of developing in Google Workspace is often powerful solutions can be a couple lines of code, and increasingly no code at all.”- Martin Hawksey (@mhawksey), Scotland, UK
“I use Workspace for the ability to break through the ceiling with Apps Script when there is something I can't do in Sheets, Forms, Docs & Slides alone”- Max Brawer (@brawermd), New York, NY
"To be able to build solutions that boost collaboration is what I like the most. The open structure allows you to add your custom needs. A simple and intuitive interface; no need for switching, just start building!"- Niek Waarbroek (niekwaarbroek), Netherlands
“Apps Script is the "glue" that pastes together many Google services to bring on beautiful automations to your personal, business or school data workflows. Anytime, anywhere, all in the cloud. Its immediacy and ease of use make it my first choice to leverage the full potential of Google Workspace.”- Pablo Felip Monferrer (@pfelipm), Castelló de la Plana, Spain
“I've always been good with Spreadsheet formulas but even as someone who doesn't necessarily come with a strong coding/technical background, Workspace tools made it so much more easier & seamless to connect one another and build stuff the way any product/engineering team would. This inspired me to connect different SaaS tools that have APIs and build my own set of integrations.”- Sourabh Choraria (@schoraria911), Bangalore, India
“I'm using Workspace as it is the only solution for the last 10 years that allows me to access my documents from anywhere and provides me an easy to use development interface for Google API with Apps Script.”- Stéphane Giron (@st3phcloud), Lyon, France
“I use Google Workspace for its great collaboration, communications, integrations, and workflows. I recently led our team to build a client solution for a COVID-19 scrolling ticker in Gmail that leveraged Sheets, Apps Script, Firebase Notifications and Chrome extensions -- anything is possible!”- Steve Webster (@SteveWebster22), Lakeland, FL
“Workspace can reduce the process costs in the various works by the automatic control of applications. Especially, when Google Apps Script and APIs are used, the possibility of higher efficiency will be the infinity. I believe that this will blow a new wind towards our daily life.”- Kanshi Tanaike (@tanaikech), Osaka, Japan
“Because we can automate our work with Apps Script.”
- Yuki Tanabe (@tanabee_en), Tokyo, Japan
If you are interested in connecting and learning more about what GDEs are talking about or working on, follow with them via their social channels. Most GDEs are quite active in sharing everything from daily tips, events, or fully open source projects. Use the links above in the GDE profiles or reference the full GDE directory to explore experts across all Google developer technologies.
The Google Workspace GDE community also host some really useful resources worth calling out here: