Brendan Ritter, Developer in Cambridge, MA, United States
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Brendan Ritter

Verified Expert  in Engineering

Full-stack Developer

Location
Cambridge, MA, United States
Toptal Member Since
November 11, 2021

Brendan has spent the last five years working as a full-stack engineer at Raytheon BBN, developing pathfinding and scheduling applications for several clients, including the US Air Force and Pentagon. With a bachelor's degree in computer science at Olin College of Engineering and a master's degree in computer science at Cornell University, Brendan is interested in freelancing because he is willing to learn and work in many different domains while contributing to challenging technical projects.

JavaPythonReactC#Machine LearningAlgorithmsSpringComputer Science

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

Computer Science, Java, Python, React, JavaScript

The most amazing...

...projects I've worked on so far are, first, a strategic tanker model for the Pentagon and second, an experimental in-browser Skype client for Microsoft.

Work Experience

Scientist | Operations Researcher

2016 - 2021
Raytheon BBN
  • Developed an application that scheduled and simulated particular capabilities of the Mobility Air Force, reducing the analyst time from two months to less than three hours.
  • Conducted user research and developed an application that matched pilots to missions, taking into account training, qualifications, and airforce regulations. The system was capable of reducing scheduling time to five minutes.
  • Optimized many applications, analyzing and fixing the algorithm structure, adding caching and multi-threading, sometimes reducing run time by as much as 90%.
  • Created a tool that allowed for simultaneous scheduling of hundreds of aircraft, taking into account hundreds of constraints.
Technologies: Java, JavaScript, Spring, React, Python

Software Development Intern

2015 - 2015
Athenahealth
  • Developed a framework and tools for code quality analysis using Perl and JavaScript.
  • Optimized the tool until it could conduct a review of the entire multi-thousand file codebase in minutes.
  • Used the tool to offer suggestions to the management level on where to focus their refactoring efforts.
Technologies: PEARL, JavaScript

Aerial Refueling Model

I acted as the key developer for the technical segment of an aerial refueling model for USTRANSCOM, the department of defense (OSD CAPE), and AFRL. This tool supports scheduling, visualization, and analysis of mid-air refueling.

My responsibilities included the development of algorithms, UI design, synthesizing client concerns, and domain modeling. All the work was done in Java.

Sarcasm Detection Tool

I conducted a project with Bloomberg, where I worked with a multidisciplinary team of six to productize and improve sarcasm detection. We focused on iTunes app ratings and achieved an F1 score of 70%. The work was done in Python and JavaScript.

Experimental In-browser Skype Client

I interned as a developer at Microsoft during the summer of 2014. I worked with the Skype calling team to make an experimental in-browser client. The work was done in C# and JavaScript and leveraged the Azure cloud platform. I was the sole developer involved in the project.

Strategic Tanker Scheduling Tool

I was the sole developer building a strategic tanker scheduling tool for the department of defense (OSD CAPE). I created the tool from scratch, investigated, and built out multiple search algorithms. I also worked on front-end map-based visualization and the graphical user interface. The work was done in Python.

Languages

Java, JavaScript, Python, C#, PEARL

Other

User-centered Design (UCD), Computer Science, Modeling, Operations Research, Domain Research, Machine Learning, Product Design, Technology Strategy & Architecture, Search, Sentiment Analysis, Algorithms

Libraries/APIs

React

Frameworks

Spring

Paradigms

Data Science

2015 - 2016

Master's Degree in Computer Science

Cornell University - New York, NY, United States

2011 - 2015

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science

Olin College of Engineering - Needham, MA, United States

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