Soaring Kiwis: Guy who said no to Google now heads up its engineers

Craig Nevill-Manning says it's the creative aspect that drives most computer scientists. Photo / Richard Robinson

In 1999, when Craig Nevill-Manning was approached by Larry Page to join the new web phenomenon called Google, "of course the answer was no", he says.

The computer science graduate had just finished his postdoctoral research at Stanford University and taken a job as a professor at Rutgers University. During his research, he gave a presentation on full text indexing, part of the process Google is now based on, and Larry Page and Google co-founder Sergey Brin happened to be in the audience.

"I didn't really understand the significance of that then but once I finished my postdoctoral and became a professor in New Jersey, Larry dropped me an email and said, 'We're now starting a company to build this Google thing into a real business; would you like to join', so of course the answer was no," Nevill-Manning said. "At that time I had to turn them down because I'd just started my academic career and hadn't really thought about going to a tech start-up."

It took 18 months and a trip to Google to change his mind, but in 2000, Nevill-Manning decided to join the company as its head of engineering and now employs a vast team of programmers that spread out over more than 4ha of office space.

"They were trying to make a business that was self-sustaining and so on but there were really very interesting [computer science] problems and ones that if we came up with good solutions to would have a big impact on, at that time millions, and now billions of people," he said. "So once I realised that, the decision was kind of obvious."

Nevill-Manning is part of New Zealand's global networking organisation Kea, which helps connect Kiwis around the world and support their success.

Many of his career opportunities came from early connections between New Zealand and the rest of the world - something he said was important to continue to build, with Kea a vital network.

"I think whatever we can do in New Zealand to make sure that we're well connected with people overseas is incredibly important, and Kea have been great for this," he said.

Nevill-Manning grew up in Blenheim, becoming interested in computers early on. He said the main work for a high school student in the area was in the agriculture industry, so he spent his summers clipping garlic to save up for his first computer which he then plugged into an old black and white television.

"I think just the idea that I could sit down and turn on this computer and then tell it what to do and then have it do that thing; you're basically almost creating some version of life. So I think it's that creative aspect that drives most computer scientists."

He went on to study computer science at the University of Canterbury, before completing his PhD at the University of Waikato. After that he moved to America to do his postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford in the biochemistry department.

Nevill-Manning credits much of where he is now to his study of computer science, a subject he said still had worryingly low graduate numbers.

"There's still not enough people enrolled in computer science, so we're trying to get kids more interested in computer science, and show them it's about problem solving and design and thinking about the user, and that it is a really interesting subject," Nevill-Manning said.

"It is something Google is concerned about because our business thrives on having lots of really smart people coming up with great new ideas and we're always looking for great people to hire."

After taking on the role at Google in 2000, Nevill-Manning spent a while working at its California office, before moving across the US to New York.

"I managed to convince Larry that we needed an office in New York to hire developers that didn't want to live in California," he said. "So I started up the office and one of the first things we built in the new office was Google local, which was essentially searching the web from a geographical perspective which evolved into what is now Google Maps."

Having worked at Google for about 14 years, Nevill-Manning said the move was one of his best decisions, not least because of the fun office environment, with slides and ladders between floors and a climbing wall.

However, it was the people that made his job amazing.

"Google is pretty fun," he said. "From an environment point of view we're completely spoilt, we have fantastic healthy food, we have good coffee, massage therapists on site, a gym, so Google treats us very well."

Craig Nevill-Manning

• University of Canterbury - BSc Honours in Computer Science (1987-1989).
• University of Waikato - PhD in Computer Science (1992-1996).
• Stanford University - Postdoctoral Fellow (1996-1998).

Soaring Kiwis

A series on high-achieving New Zealanders with a low profile here doing big things overseas.

Previously featured:

• Privahini Bradoo, BlueOak chief executive and founder
• Shane Legg, DeepMind Technologies co-founder