Ryan Hecht

Ryan Hecht

Pronounced RYE-uhn HEKT

Product at GitHub. Owner and lead developer of MCParks. Orlando, Florida and Long Island, New York.

Work

  1. Product ManagerGitHub

    May 2022 – present

    • Led product for GitHub Copilot CLI from nascent experiment to general availability, defining the requirements, prototypes, and metrics for each public preview milestone.
    • Ran GitHub Classroom and Education, closing the table-stakes gaps that were capping it: 20% year-over-year growth in active teachers, 45% in active students.
    • Led the cross-functional redesign of GitHub’s signup, worth a 5% lift in conversion and a 3x lift in users who engage with onboarding.

    Related workGitHub Copilot CLI

  2. Owner and lead developerMCParks

    2013 – present

    • Run a 1:1 Minecraft recreation of the world’s theme parks as a live service: 450,000 guests to date and 150 volunteer staff.
    • Architected the plugin ecosystem behind it, and wrote the scripting and achievement languages that let volunteer teenagers build attractions without touching Java.
    • Do the unglamorous half too — bare-metal Linux, a 100-user directory, the budget, and the moderation culture that keeps it safe for younger guests.

    Related workMCParks

  3. Program ManagerMicrosoft

    Aug 2020 – May 2022Redmond, Washington

    • Designed the Extended Stable channel for Microsoft Edge, for the enterprises that cannot take a browser update every four weeks.
    • Helped retire the legacy Edge Windows application and rewrote the documentation for the release channels that replaced it.
4 earlier roles

  1. Head Sunlab consultantBrown University

    Sep 2017 – May 2020Providence, Rhode Island

    • Ran the CS department’s main computer lab: hired and managed the consultant team, and did the front-desk debugging myself.

  2. Program Manager internMicrosoft

    Summer 2019Redmond, Washington

    • Proposed Windows Shell investments to grow OneDrive sharing, built web prototypes of File Explorer to test them, and sized the impact.

  3. Software developerBrown Space Engineering

    Sep 2016 – Nov 2018Providence, Rhode Island

    • Wrote node.js ground software for a satellite that launched to the ISS in 2018 and is still in orbit.

  4. Full-stack engineering internVitae Industries

    Summer 2018Providence, Rhode Island

    • Built and deployed REST APIs and a React survey and physician-review platform for a digital prescribing clinic, with CI on Jenkins and Docker.