Meet the Wizards: Brett Bittke, Developer

When you type something in a search box on a Yahoo! Store running our flagship product, Search Magic, and you’re matched with exactly the product you were looking for, thank Brett Bittke!

Brett is the main developer behind our search application that provides Yahoo! Stores with advanced search capabilities that aren’t found in the eCommerce platform’s default search engine.

Building the product was a labor of love for many of our team members, but Brett considers Search Magic his “baby.” He’s also the team member charged with keeping the app up to date by releasing new features, doing maintenance updates, and assisting with on-boarding new clients.

“I’ve enjoyed building Search Magic as it was really fun learning Elasticsearch which helps power the app, but digging in and learning how to fine-tune results so they are relevant is something I’m proud of and is reflected in each search that a user conducts,” says Brett.

While he has other projects to complete on a daily basis that don’t involve Search Magic, he maintains a roadmap of future enhancements for the product with updates rolling out monthly. “The most recent upgrade we’ve made to Search Magic that I’m proud of is connecting Google Analytics. This integration allows us to get much more insight into what search terms are bringing in the most revenue,” according to Brett.

Brett’s experience with building Search Magic and learning the technology behind it led him to be assigned to other new learning experiences here at Your Store Wizards including migrating one of our client’s stores from Magento v.1 to Magento v.2.

“The Magento platform is a complex web app that has a lot of moving parts. The project required me to learn a new platform while at the same time re-building features as well as building new features into the Magento v.2 platform,” Brett explains. “ It was a challenge, but the store is live, the client is thrilled, and the site looks and functions great.”

When asked what he likes most about working at Your Store Wizards there was no hesitation is Brett’s answer, “I enjoy helping our customers succeed in their business and being able to build new features and learn new technologies.”

As a “builder” it’s no surprise that Brett would pick Tim Berners-Lee as the one person he’d like to sit down and chat with for 15-minutes. Berners-Lee is a professor of computer science but is more commonly known as the man who invented the World Wide Web in 1989.

Brett currently lives in Laguna Beach, CA and when he finds free time he spends it golfing and bowling. He graduated with honors and has a Bachelors of Science degree in Information Technology and a minor in business.

Leave a Reply