Marek Ventur

Full-Stack Developer

I have worked for different companies and industries, such as tech giant IBM, music industry disruptor Last.fm and gambling startup Gamevy. At the moment I'm working at Amazon as a Software Development Engineer.

In my spare time I'm part of the team that designs and builds the increasingly complex conference badges for the Electromagnetic Field hacker camp.

I combine in-depth frontend and backend knowledge with the skills to plan and deliver successful projects.

Skills

Backend Development: Java, Python, Node.js, PHP
HTTP infrastructure: Apache, nginx, Websockets, load balancing
Frontend Development: JS, CSS, React, HTML5 Game Development
Operations: Server administration, CI, scaling, automation, monitoring
Data Analysis: Reporting, Hadoop/Hive, Big Query, SQL, DynamoDB
Project Management: Product ownership, Client communication, Resourcing, Prioritisation
Bilingual: English, German

Selected projects (the ones I'm allowed to talk about)

Reporting infrastructure: ETL service for normalising and pushing game data to Google Big Query.
Rohrpost: PubSub-to-Websocket server build for one of Gamevy's multiplayer games. Designed to separate long lasting websocket connections from backend services and to handle automatic load balancing, server restarts and backend handover during deploys - github.com/Gamevy/rohrpost-server
Realtime Scrobbles: How many users are listening to what music in which country? Second-level-resolution of Last.fm's "currently listening" data fronted by a custom load-balancing infrastructure
PIXI Packer: Assets packer focused on small download sizes and speed. Reduced build time of Gamevy's games by 50% - github.com/Gamevy/pixi-packer
Monte Carlo: Game simulation framework designed to speed up testing of new game concepts - github.com/Gamevy/monte-carlo
Tilda Mk2, Mk3 and Mk4: Custom designed (and fully working) PCBs used conference badges for UKs biggest hackers and makers gathering - blog.emfcamp.org

Employment history

Amazon (Oct 2017 - Present), London

Software Development Engineer

Working on services that enable Amazon's massive product catalog

Design and implementation of new features.
Day-to-day running of services, including on-call support
Operations and tooling
Trouble shooting and support in one of the worlds most complex product pipelines

Gamevy (Aug 2013 - Sep 2017), London

Senior Developer and Product Lead

As the first non-founder to join Gamevy I've worked on game design, HTML5 frontends, backend infrastructure and operations

Developing game concepts for the majority of Gamevy's games to date.
Project management from customer request to delivery
Creating playable prototypes and simulations as well as the probabilistic maths to verify their correctness
UX: Making sure that Gamevy's games not only look great but are also easy to understand and a fun to play
Implementation of backend infrastructure in accordance with gambling regulations
Implementation of game frontend for both mobile and desktop via HTML5. Frequent contributer to PIXI.js
Creation of infrastructure for continuous deployment, scaling, monitoring and auditing

Last.fm (Oct 2011 - Aug 2013), London

Web and Data Developer

Back-end and focused (Hadoop, Java and PHP) with occasional front end projects

Data research (Hadoop, Hive, SQL)
Refactor of a chart-image generator service, serving millions of requests per day
Maintenance of infrastructure that handles user-uploaded images
Suggested, prototyped, designed and implemented main parts of Last.fm's realtime charts infrastructure that provided up-to-the-second resolution
Participated in major redesign project

IBM (Oct 2008 - Nov 2011), Germany

Corporate Student Program

Project work in various IBM teams combined with an integrated university BSc program