Zachary Witte

Objective A full time placement with an innovative startup in a creative, energetic environment. Special interests in intelligent systems, machine learning, data mining, and analytics.

Education

1. University of Wisconsin-Madison, BS in Computer Sciences, May, 2008

   Relevant Courses: System Analysis & Design (UML and Human-Computer Interaction), Computer Vision, Cognitive Science, Computer Graphics, Intelligent Web Technologies (search engines, cognitive modeling, chance discovery, data mining), Artificial Intelligence, Algorithms, Databases, Operating Systems, Statistics, Network Programming, Linear Programming and Optimization

Notable Projects

• Wrote a real-time data mining tool for harvesting Foursquare and Gowalla checkins from twitter, logging them in MongoDB, and showing aggregated checkin density with real-time updates on a google maps interface. The back-end daemon is written in Python and the API and front-end uses django. This project is still in development and continuously being improved.
• Wrote a robust, real-time data mining and analysis tool in java called TweetPulse. The service harvests, resolves 301 redirects of short urls, and aggregates ~1500 links per minute from Twitter’s limited streaming API while staying only a few seconds behind real time. I call the concept “macro-analytics”.
• Software Group leader on UW-Madison IEEE Robotics team responsible for team management, framework evaluation, mapping and navigation systems, and oversight of other projects including stereovision, GUI, and JAUS protocol implementation.
• Independent research project on autonomous navigation and simultaneous localization and mapping in mobile robotics. The vehicle builds a map of the environment while simultaneously using that map for autonomous path-finding. Researched SLAM methods of outdoor localization using probabilistic reasoning to correct odometry data based on environment landmarks. Building on the established CARMEN framework, I practiced low-level C optimization, efficient memory management, network optimization including application-level message fragmentation, sequencing, and synchronization. The vehicle was entered into the IGVC competition in Michigan in 2008.
• Bare-bones client-server proof-of-concept web service written in C using HTTP protocol directly on the UNIX TCP stack. Used multi-threaded, producer-consumer model with pthreads.
• Implemented simple feed forward, back propagation neural network library in C, customizing algorithms in preparation for port to CUDA, a framework for highly parallel streaming processors on nvidia hardware. Tested using face detection application.
• Created from scratch a shape-detecting tool in Java using image processing algorithms and feature classification heuristics. Modified existing image processing algorithms to optimize for this particular application.
• Wrote a tech demo game using versatile ogre3d graphics engine utilizing particle systems, lighting effects and built with extensibility in mind in case of further development. Wrote basic physics and AI.

Professional Experience

1. 2003 — Present
   Independent Contractor
   Freelance development on a per-project contractual basis. Most of this work has been in the web space. Though usually working independently, I sometimes employ sub-contractors on larger projects. Recent projects have included custom API design and development, javascript heavy dynamic front-end interfaces, PHP back-end, and migrating data from legacy systems into new standards. Occasionally I serve as a consultant.
2. Aug 2008 — Sept 2009
   

   Chicago, IL

   midVentures
   CTO
   Served as CTO and partner at midVentures, a startup providing life cycle business and technology services from idea to product for entrepreneurs. Acted as project manager, lead developer, and/or interim CTO for numerous new companies and exploratory projects. Orchestrated or consulted for projects spanning 1-6 months. Acquired and coordinated talent for all technical and creative positions. Architect of infrastructure, data model, and application frameworks. Evaluated tools, technologies, and services. Developed integration components with APIs such as Twitter, Amazon Web Services, and Facebook. Mainly used Java, PHP, Javascript, Flash/Actionscript, MySQL, and dabbled in numerous others.
3. Jul 2008 — Jan 2009
   

   Chicago, IL

   PEAK6/OptionsHouse
   Software Engineer
   Worked in the core technologies group responsible for development of distributed application infrastructure with OptionsHouse, the options brokerage arm of PEAK6, a Chicago hedge fund and capital management group. Responsible for integrating a new Java Messaging System for inter-server communications platform using SwiftMQ and successfully carried out a zero downtime rollover to the new technology. Developed a framework for distributed stress testing, integration testing, unit testing and benchmarking with realistic traffic simulations covering numerous use-cases. Defined metrics to measure performance of each critical application component. Identified and attacked bottlenecks, optimizing infrastructure by leveraging low-level knowledge of Linux and highly multi-threaded applications. Wrote an intelligent, application-specific, real-time, continuous database diff tool to synchronously compare live production databases during migration from Oracle to EDB.
4. Feb 2007 — Present
   Institute for Policy Studies
   Back-end Developer
   A long term, contracted project, to develop a custom, highly relational content management system for this Washington DC think tank with a multi-phase rollout plan over 2 years. It is built from scratch on a LAMP stack with REST API. The unified platform supports multiple domains with unique front-end interfaces.

Skills

• Programming Languages (in order of preference)

  • C / C++    Libraries: STL, pthreads, Qt, Ogre3d    Tools: GDB, valgrind
  • Java
  • Python
  • PHP
  • JavaScript

• Databases

  • MySQL incl. triggers, stored procedures, basic DBA
  • MongoDB
  • Google App Engine datastore
  • Postgres

• Tools

  • Eclipse
  • SVN
  • Linux / Mac OS X
  • Build Automation: gcc + make + autotools

Other Accomplishments & Activities

• Software Group Leader, IEEE Robotics Team, UW-Madison
• Innovative Schools Scholarship
• Dean’s List