computer science, math, programming and other stuff
a blog by Christopher Swenson
Have Code, Will Travel
Hi, I’m Christopher Swenson. I thought I would try an experiment where I posted a bit about myself and solicited job recommendations or contracting for what I work on next.
I’ve recently left my full-time position as a technology fellow at Capital One, and I am looking for new work, either full-time or part-time as a contractor.
Here is a little about me:
- Software developer for 10 years or so — Google, Capital One, Simple, US government, startups, and freelance.
- Usually backend development, sometimes devops, frontend, mobile, and embedded.
- Also spent years as a researcher and mathematician: I have a Ph.D in computer science, and worked in high-performance computing (HPC), security, and cryptography.
If you would like to see a sample of some of my work, you can here:
- sort.h: a somewhat popular high-performance C sorting library.
- BeeWare Batavia: a reference implementation of Python in JavaScript for the BeeWare project.
- Modern Cryptanalysis, a book I wrote in 2008
- Some talks I have given can be seen on my site.
I’m happy to send a detailed résumé and discuss more, and you can view a smaller version of my résumé here.
As far as what I am looking for in a company, these are a must:
- Lots of development work. I like to write code. I am happy to talk to people and manage a team, but I’m only happy if I am coding at least 70% of the time.
- Work–Life balance. I don’t want to work myself to death in the next few years.
- Remote-friendly or based in Portland, OR. I’m based in Portland, OR, and I have no intention of moving. I love it here. I’ve successfully worked remotely for a number of companies over several years, and I have a formula that works well for me (for instance, I rent my own office outside my home), but it only works if the company I’m working with understands this.
- Working with a diverse set of people. Software is people, and homogeneous teams build bland products.
- Open source work is welcomed: I love working with the open source community. Conferences and speaking are supported: I like going to conferences, running conferences, and speaking at conferences.
- Good health benefits.
- I am happy to travel a fairly arbitrary amount of the time.
Some nice-to-haves:
- Opportunities for research and publishing.
- Flexible hours.
If this sounds like you, please contact me at swenson@swenson.io.
Thanks!