Who Am I?

My name is David Ewald and I have a love for software and web development. I was born in Nurnberg, Germany and now hail in the green fields of Seattle, Washington. I am currently a full time student at the University of Washington and study Human Computer Interaction. I love to learn about all things technology and have a special place in my heart for back-end web development. If you ask any of my close friends, they will tell you I am always blabbering on about the latest thing I have read or learned about. I am very interested in the startup scene in Seattle, and am currently organizing Startup Weekend UW. I am a very hard worker, and am always on the journey to becoming a better programmer. I wish to find a job in which I can take pride in and really feel like I am making an impact. It isn’t about the salary and benefits for me, I wish to work on something meaningful, something that might make a difference in the world.

My Passions

Online Learning

I have always been passionate about teaching others, even from a very early age. I have been a Teacher Assistant since high school and have always wanted to help people on their journey of knowledge. With the advent of the web and MOOCs it is a really exciting time for education in the virtual space.

Web Development

I have always been fascinated by the web and now more than ever, the web is an exciting place to be. With websites handling massive amounts of data, back-end web development has become an arena filled with amazing challenges and problems which I love solving. I also love that front-end web development has become a serious place to program. With the rise of front-end frameworks and JavaScript becoming a more serious player in the programming world, front-end is now a very exciting place to be. All things considered, I love the challenge, and the artistry involved with the web. It is constantly changing and I love that about it.

Space Exploration

I have been a huge space nerd ever since my eyes first experienced Star Trek Enterprise. I was hooked instantly and ever since have had an affinity for space and its far reaches. If I was not pursuing a career in programming, I would probably be pursuing astrophysics. I am a firm believer in the need for exploration and players like NASA and SpaceX to go out and discover and create in space. I hope to one day be a lead programmer for a company which is investing in space in some way.

Experience

Software Developer Intern

Liberty Mutual Insurance

I was the lead developer/designer in creating an application which reports and visualizes inward facing IT data. This means we created a data warehouse which collects the data from many different sources and pushes it to the application layer where it is organized and then finally visualized. I presented the project in front of the entire management staff of my department. I was able to save Liberty Mutual about $500,000 in man hours as well as increase their ability to observe and predict future IT opportunities and problems.

Software Developer

NomOn

NomOn is a small startup formed from Startup Weekend UW last year. We wanted to create a very quick and easy food delivery application similar to Eat24. We ended up partnering with a google ventures group, the same one which backs EAT24 and am now one of two software developers on the team. I am developing the main algorithm of the service, as well as the entire backend system (PHP), and a fully functioning web and mobile application.

Web Development TA

University of Washington

As a TA, I help develop course content, teach lab sections and hold office hours after class to assist students. I love teaching students about web development, it’s awesome to see people create things and watch them come to life on the web. I cover topics from HTML5/CSS3 to full web applications using modern JavaScript frameworks such as Angular.js and Backbone.

Python Tutor

Independent

Python has become a lot more than just a ‘neat’ language in recent years and thus the need for Python knowledge has increased. After hearing that some people in my program were wanting to learn, I took matters into my own hands and started holding my own class which teaches Python to those interested. We cover everything from basic Python syntax and structure to advanced web applications such as Django. We also dabble in some data science and try to do interesting things with Python.

Organizations

Vice President

Informatics Undergraduate Association

I act as the conduit between faculty/staff and students, as well as manage business partnerships between companies and the major. I also organize events and recruitment efforts such as game and networking nights. I also work with first year students within the major and breed them to be leaders of tomorrow.

Organizer

Startup Weekend UW

Startup Weekend is a great brand and cause which brings people together from all corners of the tech world and lets them hack it out for 72 hours. I help organize the event, from sponsorships, to promotion and everything in between. Last year we had great turnout, with amazing atmosphere and even had news coverage. We hope this year will be just as amazing and that we have companies spring up similar to last year.

Associate Member

Student Technology Fee

Every year the University of Washington collects a technology fee as part of annual tuition. They pool this money up and then form a committee to vote on proposals who wish to gain access to this pool. I was part of the 7 student committee who listened to the proposals and voted on them based on a priority vector we established.

Projects

ChatMania

ChatMania was a project in which I wanted to use Node.js and Web sockets to create a real-time chat system that could be easily used within web projects. I wanted to have all the functionality of a traditional chat system, but focus on speed and efficiency while using Socket.io to scale down to long polling on older browsers for cross browser compatibility. The project was then expanded to encompass the idea of universal communication and to translate text to an appropriate language for the receiving user. I am still in the process of working on the second iteration which I am really excited to finish.

PhoneGap Application

I was curious as to how nicely Angular.js and PhoneGap could work in unison and create a cross-platform web application. I then decided to create an application which can essentially fuse multiple web applications providing food, music and entertainment all within one application. This is currently still in development but should release towards the end of 2013.

Chess Scouter

To graduate with an informatics degree, all students must complete a capstone project and present in front of faculty, staff and members of industry. One of my friend was working on a project in which he wanted to create a chess system for beginners. He wanted to create visuals that would support learning as well as give smart suggestions as to good next moves. He needed help with the algorithms and establishing a multiplayer backend, so I decided to help him out and joined the team. Within a couple of days we had a working game of chess all written in JavaScript and plans for the future. I am working on creating a multiplayer system as well as implementing A.I for different skills levels.

Skills and Proficiencies

Languages

Java, C++, C#, Python, Ruby, PHP, JavaScript (JQuery, Typescript, CoffeeScript), HTML5/CSS3

Frameworks

Rails, Backbone, Angular, Node, Express, Laravel, WordPress

Tools

Git, Heroku, Eclipse, SublimeText2, PhoneGap, Tableau, Excel, AWS

Databases

SQLServer, MYSQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQLite, PL/SQL, NoSQL (Redis, MongoDB)

Education

University of Washington

Seattle, Washington
Bachelor of Science Informatics-Human Computer Interaction

Related Coursework: Networking, Algorithms and Data structures, Systems Analysis, Design Theory, Information and Search, Advanced Database Design, Back-end Development, Information Visualization.

Timberline High School

Lacey, Washington
Diploma with Honors

Teacher Assistant - Math and Science

Current Learning Quest

Reading List

  • Learn You a Haskell For Great Good
  • Understanding Computation
  • The Pragmatic Programmer
  • Building Scalable Node Applications

Languages and Concepts

  • Scala
  • Haskell
  • Node Extenstions in C