Joel Lithgow

Dear Hiring Manager,

I am writing to express my interest in the Staff Creative Technologist position at Google. When I saw this role, I felt like I was reading a description of the career I've been building toward—and more importantly, the way I already work. The intersection of design, engineering, and rapid prototyping is where I thrive, and AI-assisted development has transformed how I approach that intersection.

For the past year, I've been deeply immersed in agentic development workflows. Claude Code is my daily driver—not as a crutch, but as a collaborator that lets me focus on architecture, patterns, and user experience rather than syntax. I build WebGL shaders, orchestrate multi-step prompts, and ship prototypes that would have taken me weeks in days. This isn't theoretical experience with 'vibe coding tools'—it's how I work.

My technical foundation spans seven years at California College of the Arts, where I progressed from QA Specialist to Interaction Designer to UX Designer/Developer. That journey gave me something valuable: I understand what it takes to build quality software because I've tested it, designed it, and developed it. I know how to bridge the gap between a designer's vision and production-ready code because I've sat on both sides of that conversation.

Motion design and interactive experiences are central to my practice. I've built a WebGL shader playground with real-time controls, created generative art systems using p5.js and custom GLSL, and implemented physics-based animations for editorial storytelling. These aren't side projects—they're the work I'm most proud of, the problems I find most interesting.

Beyond my day job, I run an art gallery out of my home in Oakland. This creative practice keeps me connected to visual culture, experimentation, and the kind of lateral thinking that produces novel interactions. The 'Creative' in Creative Technologist isn't just a title to me—it's a practice I maintain.

I'm drawn to this role because it represents work at genuine scale. The opportunity to prototype interactions that could reach billions of users, to help define how people search for information, is exactly the kind of challenge I want. I'm based in Oakland but would relocate to San Francisco or Mountain View for this position.

Thank you for considering my application. I would welcome the opportunity to discuss how my experience bridging design and engineering—particularly through AI-assisted development—could contribute to Google Search.