Jeff Kao

University of Waterloo - 3A Computer Engineering

Technical Skills

  • Ruby
  • JavaScript (CoffeeScript)
  • SQL
  • HTML5 (HAML)
  • CSS3 (sass)
  • Java
  • C#
  • C/C++
  • PHP
  • perl
  • Ruby on Rails
  • Play Framework
  • ASP.NET (MVC & WebForms)
  • Blackberry UI API
  • Facebook Graph API
  • jQuery
  • Backbone.js
  • git, hg, svn
  • Unix/Linux/OS X
  • MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB
  • Heroku
  • AWS
  • Apache
  • nginx
  • IIS

Work Experience


Inkling
Software Engineer
Sept. '12 - Dec. '12
San Francisco, CA
Worked on back-end infrastructure to scale out Inkling's publishing platform. Highlights include:
  • Worked on improving performance across backend services. Some examples include:
    • Refactoring caching algorithms for user and group management leading to performance improvements of a magnitude
    • Improving SVN storage mechanisms for increased performance
  • Leading force in reworking of Inkling's project management application to support 10X scale:
    • Added a caching layer to existing data layer to support more efficent, production-ready API
    • Reworked database layer to support sharding to support large data growth
    • Factored out patches in existing project management tool to support maintainable, testable plugin architecture
Technologies Used: Python, Ruby on Rails, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, Memcached, SVN, git

PagerDuty
Software Engineer
Jan. '12 - April '12
San Francisco, CA
Iterated and shipped features at a Y-Combinator funded startup building an IT alerting and monitoring platform. Some highlights include:
  • Converting Payment System to remove PCI Compliance requirements, removing need of costly security audits
  • Automating a number of administration tasks, with metrics including conversions and automated payments, saving administration time
  • Performing major refactor on accounts system, while significantly increasing test coverage on legacy, un-tested code base
  • Migrating existing JavaScript to CoffeeScript with required infrastructure, as well as upgrading Backbone.js to 1.0 release candidate
  • Winning internal Hackday award for developing infrastructure to support internationalization on Marketing site
Technologies Used: Ruby on Rails, MySQL, git, JavaScript/CoffeeScript, jQuery, Backbone.js, HAML, SASS, Twitter Bootstrap, AWS

Infusion Development
Software Consultant
May. '11 - Sept '11
New York, NY
Worked with clients to deliver enterprise solutions in an Agile environment. Some highlights include:
  • Building an education-funding review platform from ground-up for New York Department of Education
  • Maintaining previous iteration of education-funding platform for the New York Department of Education
  • Building a Browser Helper tool for AMD used to run AMD's desktop widgets
  • Winning internal company award for 'Best Application of the Year' for work done with the New York Department of Education
Technologies Used: C#, T-SQL, Microsoft SQL Server, JavaScript/jQuery, ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET WebForms, HTML/CSS, Windows API

Sybase
Software Developer
Aug. '10 - Dec '10
Waterloo, ON
Built infrastructure tools for Sybase IQ product and team:
  • Writing Java plugins for installer tool, and bash/perl scripts to automate the Sybase IQ product dependencies
  • Building an automated test framework as a side project for installation tools
Technologies Used: Java, bash, perl, XML, Sybase Database Suite, SQL

RamSoft
Software QA
Jan. '10 - Apr. '10
Toronto, ON
  • Worked with developers to test medical-imaging software.
Technologies Used: SQL, batch scripts

Recent Projects


Mediac
Social dynamic content sharing platform. Under construction.
Technologies Used: Ruby on Rails 3.2, Twitter Bootstrap, MySQL, Heroku

PhotoGraff
HTML5 Facebook application for drawing and editing photos on Facebook.
Technologies Used: Facebook Graph API, JavaScript & jQuery, HTML5 Canvas, PHP

Github
Other projects and recent code samples can be found on https://github.com/jkao