Aaron Opell

Atlassian July 2022 - present

Dataherald June 2020 - May 2022

• Designed and developed the majority of the backend for a data journalism tool using Python Flask, MongoDB, and PostgreSQL
• Architected a REST API providing journalists with the ability to customize their visualizations in online articles
• Maintained an Apache Airflow instance and other company infrastructure using S3, EC2, RDS, DocumentDB, Elasticache, and other AWS services
• Built an ETL data pipeline creation library using Python and Airflow, powering automated real-time updates for our data visualizations
• Enhanced team productivity by automating and streamlining Jira workflows, allowing quantitative tracking of engineering effectiveness

Amazon June 2021 - August 2021

• Designed a proposal for and planned the implementation of adding custom alarm names to alarms set via the Alexa voice assistant
• Collaborated with the Alexa Mobile team to integrate the named alarm features into the Alexa mobile app
• Conducted end-to-end testing of the feature on headless, multimodal, and mobile devices to ensure all behavior was correct

Great Minds Robotics June 2017 - August 2019

• Guided students in learning to write computer programs using languages such as C#, JavaScript, C++, Java, and MS SQL
• Leveraged knowledge of desktop, web, and database technologies to help students create websites, desktop apps, mobile apps, and games
• Assisted students by demonstrating best practices for testing, debugging, and verifying program behavior

University of California, Berkeley August 2018 - May 2022

Schoology Plus Browser Extension December 2017 - present

• Created and developed an open source browser extension (using HTML/CSS/JS) which provides new features for and enhances existing capabilities of the learning management system Schoology which allows students to interact with their grades and coursework online
• Composed and maintained comprehensive documentation of features, providing clear and detailed instructions for complex capabilities
• Collected feedback by examining analytics, conducting surveys, and interacting with our users and contributors via an online chat community
• Reaches over 200,000 monthly users (and growing!) from hundreds of schools across the world

CyberPatriot Cyber Defense Competition September 2014 - June 2018

• Secured virtual machines running Windows and Linux desktop and server operating systems by identifying and fixing a variety of security vulnerabilities during a timed competition
• Created and tested scripts (in C#, Batch, and Bash) to automate tedious tasks and assist team members in setting and verifying security policies
• Devised strategies with team members to successfully defend our virtual systems from an attacking red team during the national finals
• Achievements:
  • Placed 2nd from among over 3000 teams in the national CyberPatriot competition (2018)
  • Placed 1st (2018, 2016) and 2nd (2017) in the California Cyber Innovation Challenge, a state sponsored competition