Music AI technology startup (audialab.com) building tools to empower artists and protect the music creative spirit. Launched a new music service Feb 2022 called ”Emergent Drums” that uses state-of-the-art generative artificial intelligence to generate novel audio samples from scratch.

FinTech innovation lab

We develop ideas with entrepreneurs from scratch and validate or kill them (ruthlessly). We work with world-class entrepreneurs in the Pacific Northwest to turn the best ideas into funded companies with rapid customer adoption.

Independent consultancy that has helped companies ranging from startups to Fortune 50. Helped them get value from their data in various capacities including engineer, advisor, sales, interim CTO, educator, recruiter, and others. Worked with data and teams across many domains (e.g. social, gaming, financial, SAAS, Product, Marketing, transportation). Built predictive models for customer churn/lifecycle, travel times (ridesharing fleet), financial forecasting, fraud detection, customer segmentation, and other applications. Built dashboards, ETL systems, visualizations, and instrumentation. Managed own biz dev, sales pipeline, invoicing, marketing. Also helped companies in the crypto space as an engineer (ERC20/ERC721). Used R, Python, Ruby, Perl, React, Mixpanel, Apsalar, Hadoop, Hive, Pig, SQL, and other industry standard tools.

Magic (YC W15) is a hybrid human-AI personal assistant via text. I joined as engineer #2. Roles spanned R&D, Engineering, Engineering recruiting, Operations, and Product. Used neural translation models in Tensorflow to create an AI chat prototype. Owned teams across Product, Retention, and Growth. Wrote code in full-stack JS via Meteor.js for web and React Native for mobile.

Founded the Data Science team for RealPlayer Cloud. Managed strategy, hiring, defining KPIs, instrumentation, vendors, cross-team collaboration. Worked closely with both Product (e.g. AAARR, experiments) and Marketing (e.g. channel attribution, pricing). Worked closely with SVPs to ensure consistent/precise external communication (e.g. SEC, investors, PR). Hosted hack sessions and encouraged people from other teams to come learn about Data Science via projects.

Founded FireStick Games, a self-funded game studio, to launch “Odd Squad” with a small, passionate team. Odd Squad is a casual free-to-play strategy game that features a collectible-component aspect much like “Magic: The Gathering”. Managed performance of the game via quantitative (retention, engagement, ARPU/ ARPPU, conversion rates, funnels, cohort analyses) and qualitative (reviews, forums) cues. Managed Growth (UA, campaign attribution, costs vs. LTVs), and monetization.

Ran a bootstrapped, profitable mobile startup. Released dozens of games and products across 10 platforms, including Android, iOS, and Facebook. The most successful of these is a brain-teaser named “The Moron Test” (TMT), which was frequently ranked by Apple as one of the top selling paid games App Store. The TMT franchise amassed more than 40 million downloads as of 2015 and has generated millions of dollars of revenue. Used various monetization schemes, including in-game virtual currencies, paid advertising (CPC, CPA, and CPM), and direct deals with brands. I also was our resident Data Scientist, and championed a data-driven culture. Designed the instrumentation/metrics for our products across different analytics providers and used R and Ruby to automate reporting. I built machine learning models to predict whether marketing spends would be ROI positive. Built an experimentation platform for realtime A/B testing in-game. Worked with Legal to protect IP (trademarks, C&D), negotiate contracts (licensing, employment, formation, non-competes, NDA, commercial real estate, buyout, independent contracting, IP assignment, etc.), and even manage a game acquisition (and the related due diligence). Worked with HR to ensure adherence to employment laws and establish a benefits program for salaried employees. Managed the hiring process from negotiating with recruiters to interviewing candidates. Worked with Accounting, Bookkeeping, and Payroll to manage tax liabilities/payments, distributions, and reconciliation of books. Worked with PR firm and spoke at conferences/meet-ups to spread excitement about our releases and help legitimize the company for recruiting and possible funding. Worked with advisors. Managed product lifecycles from inception to sunsetting.

Developed a build system in Perl, Powershell, and Batch for creating Win7 Device Stage packages across an OEM partner’s models and locales. Developed “Device Stage” demos. Designed and managed source control scheme for team via TFS. Learned basics of COM/Win32.

Test cool stuff.

Developed programs for Simulation and Training for military and private clients in C++ and Java. Worked with GLStudio, a program that creates interactive 3D environments, panels, and HUDs. Fixed bugs in various trainers. Wrote object-oriented, event-driven code.

Worked as a Software Engineer for the Test Automation team. Designed, implemented, tested, and delivered a regression testing framework for OnTarget, Adaptec’s iSCSI storage platform. Trained and led a team of five developers based across USA and India. Created testing and automation tools that were used daily by various internal teams.

Worked for NASA, United Space Alliance in the Trajectory Server group. Used C++ in a Unix environment to modify legacy code. Enabled it to save its local state to a shared memory database. Learned to use message queues, shared memory, pipes, and other forms of IPC. Developed Perl scripts to automate parts of the software documentation process. Produced hundreds of test cases for a beta version of a Code Management System. Mentored by developers responsible for mission-critical shuttle and space flight software.

Developed an interactive, database-backed testing system in PHP/MySQL. Implemented storing and grading of test answers. Learned C# on the job.

Developed an interactive, database-backed testing system in PHP/MySQL. Implemented storing and grading of test answers. Learned C# on the job.