Jake Alexander

Snap Music

Created a VR game experience using Unity and the Oculus Quest as part of a group project in a class. I primarily worked on the terrain creation, minimap, and teleportation aspects of the game.

View an example of the gameplay:

Dropbox and Google sheets API usage

Wrote Python3 scripts to automate the customer-tracking spreadsheet for my part-time marketing job. Scripts pull information from Google sheets and Dropbox and send automated emails to clients about their month's ad, the ad's performance, and where they should send their ad creative. This ensures all customers get consistent service and saves hours of manual work each month.

Observe the automatic creation of links to Dropbox folders:

Dimensionality Reduction

Improved the results of a neural network by implementing a principle component analysis (without the use of sklearn). Visualized the results of the MNIST (handwritten data, small dataset), reduced dimensionality from 784 to 3 dimensions.

See visualization of results (starting with visualized raw pixels followed by neural network's results after PCA):

Forward Deployed Engineer

• Spearheaded data integration solutions using Spark for U.S. Government clients, employing Palantir platforms to address complex challenges in civil and healthcare sectors.
• Innovated and implemented bespoke software solutions rapidly, directly enhancing client capabilities and operational efficiency through hands-on development and deployment.
• Cultivated a deep technical proficiency across a range of software engineering principles and practices, from code review and system design to deploying scalable, resilient solutions in high-stakes environments.
• Demonstrated exceptional problem-solving and customer engagement skills, delivering tailored configurations and functionalities to meet unique client needs and regulatory requirements.
• Contributed to back-end Java microservices leveraging Gradle and CircleCI within a Kubernetes ecosystem. Focused on scalability, orchestrated multi-node operations, and seamless database integrations to optimize performance and reliability.

Software Analytics Intern

• Worked with global and cross-functional teams to create a machine learning model framework and proof of concept.
• Researched machine learning debugging techniques.
• Translated high-level project goals into low-level actionable items.

Teaching Assistant - Discrete Mathematics

• Graded 150+ questions a week.
• Held office hours/tutor students 2 hours per week.
• Held recitations reviewing subjects for the class.

Consultant

• Managed $300,000+ in advertising on Facebook ads manager by collecting ad content, creating ads, overseeing co-worker ad production, monitoring/analyzing ad results, and monitoring ad spend.
• Enrolled 100+ clients in PayPal automatic invoicing, saving an estimated 10+ hours of time per month, using extensive customer service interactions.
• Created a company-wide shared spreadsheet system that increased employee productivity by an estimated 20% by carefully organizing information and using data validation (custom formulas, drop down menus, standard formulas) in Google Sheets.
• Improved customer experience by restructuring the customer file-sharing system for 50+ current clients by creating a system of client master folders and monthly subfolders in DropBox.

Columbia University

GPA: 3.928