ZHI-DA ZHONG (zhida.zhong@gmail.

com)

SUMMARY
Experienced software engineer and architect with a track record of high-quality work.

SKILLS
• Significant experience developing production software in Java, Python, C/C++ and SQL
• Web development with Java/Spring and Python/Pylons
• Object-oriented design
• Agile development
• Imperative and functional programming
• Many languages and tools: XML, HTML & CSS, Javascript, PHP and others

EMPLOYMENT HISTORY
May 2009 to Present
WIRELESS GENERATION, Brooklyn, NY

Senior Software Engineer

• Building a data and authentication service that consists of a Python server and various client libraries written in Java,
PHP and Python.
• Investigated options for improving client-side web page templating for existing web applications.

July 2008 to April 2009

THELADDERS.COM, New York, NY

Architect
• Played leading/key roles in numerous projects to increase the performance, scalability and availability of a multi-
application, multi-business-line system.
• Designed a new Solr-based Search Service to replace existing embedded Lucene search functionality in several web
applications.
• Led the effort to increase scalability of the DB layer through sharding. Assessed the need for data partitioning,
evaluated 3rd-party tools and frameworks, crafted preliminary sharding designs, determined hardware requirements,
and created a multi-phase migration plan.
• Analyzed and optimized the guest site to handle large traffic spikes through effective uses of compression, caching,
and hardware load balancing.
• Prototyped and evaluated a Terracotta-based distributed cache.

February 2005 to July 2008

THELADDERS.COM, New York, NY

Senior Software Engineer

• Designed, implemented and maintained several key components of both customer-facing and internal systems, using
Java technologies.
• Designed a versatile "A/B" and multi-variate testing platform that has enabled the team to run a broad range of A/B
tests, quickly and easily. Implemented it for the Spring Framework.
• Contributed to the envisioning, design, and implementation of a new candidate recommendation system using Java
and Lucene.
• Co-developed a patent-pending system for online resume viewing.
• Spec'ed, architected, and assisted in the design, implementation and tuning of a high-volume email platform.
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• Built a new high-performance visitor tracking system to support growing customer base and traffic spikes, including
seamless migration from the old system.
• Refactored existing application to reduce complexity and increase maintainability.
• Prepared architecture documents for existing web applications.

August 2001 to February 2004

SYSTEM DETECTION, INC., New York, NY

Software Engineer
Wrote intrusion detection software based on anomaly detection techniques. Worked on numerous components of both
the Java GUI and C data processing backend: a uniform API for DB and flat-file reading, XML processors, and a
mechanism that enabled responsive on-demand display of large data tables.

May 2000 to August 2000

KARGO, INC., New York, NY

Intern/Lead Developer
Co-authored a patent-pending system for permission-controlled sharing of user profile data over the Internet. Lead the
design and initial development of the prototype.

August 1996 to August 1999

M.I.T. LINCOLN LABORATORY, Lexington, MA

Technical Staff
Wrote cross-platform signal processing software in C/C++ that ran on massively parallel computers (Cray & Mercury).
Developed instrumentation methods and conducted performance analysis. Created a MATLAB-based visualization tool
to monitor data flow and help discover performance bottlenecks.

Summers 1990, 1992

SINAI ACADEMY, Brooklyn, NY

Consultant
Built a desktop application in C++ to manage student data and assist scheduling.

EDUCATION
Columbia University, New York, NY
Master of Science in Computer Science, May 2001 (GPA 3.7/4.0)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA

SB in Mathematics with Computer Science, June 1996 (GPA: 4.3/5.0)