Resume of Kimberley Burchett

kim.burchett@gmail.com  |  www.kimbly.com  |  New York, New York

Summary

I am interested in tech-lead and architect roles at companies developing innovative software products. My interests are diverse, but they generally focus on advanced programming languages, distributed systems, and quantitative algorithms. I spend my spare time reading textbooks and working on open source projects.

Professional Experience

Goldman Sachs Vice President 06/07 - Present
I'm a member of the "Strategies" group, where I work on a proprietary in-house programming language.

StreamBase Systems Tech Lead / Architect / Manager 03/04 - 05/07
StreamBase produces a development platform for working with very high volume data streams such as financial trading data, network packets, or RFID sensors. The system can process tens of thousands of messages per second per CPU.
  • Formed a three-person team that successfully pushed for major changes to the product including deterministic scheduling, a compiler-based backend, complex data types, parameterized modules, user-defined operators, and rewriting the server in Java. These changes resulted in improved usability and three times faster performance.
  • Managed the runtime group, which develops all product features other than the IDE and external adapters. Planned the development schedule for two major releases. Heavily involved in recruitment and hiring. Instituted branch-based development and cross-functional project plans.
  • Led the QA effort, with particular attention to identifying feature gaps, reviewing design proposals, creating automated tests, improving the development process, and maintaining a high bar for hiring.
  • Designed and implemented parameterized modules, and the Heartbeat and Metronome operators.

    Endeca, Inc Senior Software Engineer 07/01 - 02/04
    Endeca produces a server-side product that combines text search and metadata categorization to organize large catalogs of data. I left the company in order to gain management experience at StreamBase.
    • Key contributor to a project 40 times larger than any previous Endeca deployment, involving 27 machines and nearly 1 billion records. I did detailed data structure redesign in C++ to scale to this level.
    • Added support for Chinese, Japanese and Korean. Converted all string handling to Unicode UTF-8. Added language-specific word break detection and spelling correction.
    • Created the tool used by Endeca customers for deployment, coordination and monitoring of distributed clusters of production machines.
    • Created the tool used by Endeca customers to produce weekly reports on site performance, popular queries, etc. Extensible design enabled customers to define new reports.
    • Added "partial match" text search feature which, for example, allows a three-word query to match a document containing only two of the words.

    FactCity, Inc Consultant 07/00 - 06/01
    FactCity produced a web-based product that presented a natural language query interface to relational databases. I stayed with the company until they went out of business during the dot-com crash.
    • Contributor to the "new architecture" project, which improved scalability and fault-tolerance, reduced hardware requirements, and allowed data to be updated more frequently.
    • Added "brownout" feature to prevent sites from failing under high load.
    • Improved query response times by over 30%.

    One Technology, Inc Lead Software Engineer 07/99 - 06/00
    One Technology was a startup that used genetic algorithms to optimize complex industrial problems involving thousands of interdependent variables. I left the company when it became clear that the business model was failing.
    • Redesigned the core engine to run in parallel on multiple machines, using Java RMI.
    • Combined linear programming and genetic algorithms in order to solve problems with fuzzy constraints.
    • Rewrote the entire user interface to make it more intuitive to use and more visually appealing. Added transparency, drop shadows, and other eye candy.

    Software Leverage, Inc Software Engineer 05/95 - 06/99
    Software Leverage is a staff consulting agency where I worked on several projects. I was usually responsible for the full product lifecycle from gathering requirements and writing a proposal, to implementation and maintenance. I left the company to pursue more challenging work, but I still miss the people I worked with there. Some of the larger projects I worked on include:
    • Ported ObjectStore, an object-oriented database, to IRIX and Solaris/x86.
    • Created a web-based prototype for an ERP product. Implemented drag-and-drop Gantt charts, web-based calendars, and online order tracking.
    • Wrote software to control a robot with five degrees of freedom. Implemented a custom language to control the robot, with interactive editor and debugger. Wrote a graphical simulator that could import CAD models.

    Formal Education

    Brown University
    M.S. in Computer Science (spring - fall '06).
    Research: static analysis and optimization of functional reactive programming languages. Presented at PEPM'07 in Nice.
    Classes: combinatorial optimization, formal verification, distributed and concurrent programming, computational biology, natural language processing, and machine learning. 4.0/4.0 GPA.

    University of Massachusetts, Boston
    Classes: discrete math, theory of computation, and compilers (spring '02, fall '02).


    For the benefit of search engines and HR folk, here's a short list of topics I have some experience with: static analysis, model checking, type systems, statistics, protein folding, hidden markov models, 3D graphics, visualization, constraint programming, logic programming, compilers, interpreters, software transactional memory (STM), multithreading, RMI, OCaml, Haskell, Scheme, Unix, Windows.