Erick Katzenstein, Developer in New York, NY, United States
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Erick Katzenstein

Verified Expert  in Engineering

Bio

Erick is a full-stack engineer with exceptional velocity and an obsession for UX design. With 15 years of experience in engineering and design, his main areas of expertise include product development, 3D interaction, data visualization, and conversational AI (ChatGPT and Llama 2). Erick can build an entire product from scratch and looks forward to the next exciting project.

Portfolio

Hi-BB, LLC
Node.js, React, Next.js, OpenAI, Conversational AI, Puppeteer, Supabase...
Arena
React, D3.js, PostgreSQL, ChatGPT, Front-end, HTML, JavaScript, CSS, Back-end...
Twitter
JavaScript, D3.js, React, GraphQL, Front-end, HTML, CSS, Full-stack, Figma...

Experience

  • JavaScript - 12 years
  • Three.js - 10 years
  • D3.js - 10 years
  • PostgreSQL - 8 years
  • React - 6 years
  • Next.js - 4 years
  • TypeScript - 3 years
  • OpenAI GPT-4 API - 1 year

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

React, D3.js, Three.js, Figma, Next.js, TypeScript, PostgreSQL, UI Animation, OpenAI GPT-4 API, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, Back-end, Full-stack, Front-end Development, REST, ECMAScript (ES6), REST APIs

The most amazing...

...thing I've built recently is a conversational AI tool for generating Spotify playlists with ChatGPT.

Work Experience

Chief Technology Officer

2023 - PRESENT
Hi-BB, LLC
  • Built Hi-BB, your personal beauty shopper, from the ground up. The service aims to eliminate decision fatigue in shopping for products, leveraging AI and data science.
  • Acted as the lead engineer and designer, collaborating with a team of expert advisors in the beauty industry. We offer more than 20,000 product options collected from multiple public data sources.
  • Bootstrapped the project without funding. I'm the technical cofounder with one partner, the CEO.
Technologies: Node.js, React, Next.js, OpenAI, Conversational AI, Puppeteer, Supabase, PostgreSQL, Embeddings from Language Models (ELMo), Stripe, Apple Pay, Google Pay, WebSockets, TypeScript

Lead Product Engineer

2022 - 2023
Arena
  • Served as the tech and design lead for Arena's core product, providing tools for customers to visualize AI performance.
  • Worked as the tech and design lead for GTM pursuits, rapid prototyping, and fast-paced demo development.
  • Developed a component library for internal use at Arena.
Technologies: React, D3.js, PostgreSQL, ChatGPT, Front-end, HTML, JavaScript, CSS, Back-end, Full-stack, Figma, TypeScript, Next.js, Web Scraping, OpenAI GPT-3 API, Pandas, Python 3, Python, InDesign CC, Agile, Git, SQL, Rhinoceros 3D, Design, Data Visualization, Content Management Systems (CMS), Visual Studio Code (VS Code), Framer, Adobe, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Web, GLSL, 3D, Edge Computing, Vercel, Llama, Pineapple, APIs, User Interface (UI), User Experience (UX), Fintech, jQuery, Visualization, Dashboards, Front-end Development, REST, ECMAScript (ES6), Django, Progressive Web Applications (PWAs), REST APIs, Design Language, Cypress, Storybook, React Native, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), MongoDB, Animation, Web Development, API Integration, Chatbots, OpenAI, SEO Tools, Mapbox, 3D Product Modeling, Canvas

Senior Software Engineer

2020 - 2022
Twitter
  • Built internal products for platform engineers to visualize network traffic and detect and remediate fleet health issues across data centers.
  • Worked as a front-end and design lead on Mechanic, Twitter's internal tool for automating the remediation of hardware failures.
  • Worked as a front-end and design lead on Network Health Visualizer, a customized tool to visualize network traffic at Twitter.
Technologies: JavaScript, D3.js, React, GraphQL, Front-end, HTML, CSS, Full-stack, Figma, TypeScript, Next.js, Web Scraping, OpenAI GPT-3 API, Python, InDesign CC, Agile, Git, SQL, Design, Data Visualization, Content Management Systems (CMS), Visual Studio Code (VS Code), Adobe, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Web, 3D, Edge Computing, APIs, User Interface (UI), User Experience (UX), jQuery, Visualization, Dashboards, Front-end Development, REST, ECMAScript (ES6), REST APIs, Cypress, Storybook, Animation, Web Development, API Integration, Mapbox

Senior Software Engineer

2017 - 2019
Enigma Technologies
  • Acted as the tech lead for a user experience platform, an Enigma demo, and Enigma Labs.
  • Worked as a design and tech lead for the rapid prototyping of Enigma Labs.
  • Served as a design and tech lead for Enigma's company graph demo.
Technologies: SVG, WebGL, CSS, Jest, Redux, React, JavaScript, Front-end, HTML, Full-stack, Figma, TypeScript, Next.js, Pandas, Python 3, Python, InDesign CC, Electron, Agile, MySQL, Git, SQL, Design, Data Visualization, Content Management Systems (CMS), Visual Studio Code (VS Code), Adobe, Web, 3D, Vercel, APIs, User Interface (UI), User Experience (UX), Fintech, jQuery, Visualization, Dashboards, Front-end Development, REST, ECMAScript (ES6), Django, Progressive Web Applications (PWAs), REST APIs, Storybook, React Native, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), MongoDB, Animation, Web Development, API Integration, Create React App, SEO Tools, Mapbox

Interactive 3D Graphics Developer

2017 - 2018
Fitd Furniture Ltd
  • Contributed to this project as a full-stack developer.
  • Handled comprehensive design in collaboration with the client.
  • Implemented custom WebGL/GLSL in tandem with Three.js.
  • Developed a Node.js/PostgreSQL back end and a React/Redux front end.
  • Contributed to an adaptive parametric model complete with pricing logic.
Technologies: Stripe, Node.js, Express.js, PostgreSQL, Three.js, Redux, React, Front-end, HTML, JavaScript, CSS, Full-stack, Git, Rhinoceros 3D, Grasshopper, Design, Content Management Systems (CMS), Visual Studio Code (VS Code), Adobe, Web, GLSL, 3D, APIs, User Interface (UI), jQuery, Visualization, Front-end Development, REST, ECMAScript (ES6), REST APIs, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Animation, Web Development, API Integration, Create React App, SEO Tools, 3D Product Modeling, Canvas

Lead Developer

2016 - 2017
Mode Lab
  • Led the New York development team—focusing on the strategic growth and success of the online research and development initiatives.
  • Developed full-stack web and desktop apps with 3D interaction, data visualization, and parametric CAD models.
  • Conducted in-depth work with client teams. Focused on all aspects of the company's business, including project management, customer relations, strategy, and advanced research and development.
Technologies: CAD, WebGL, Redux, React, Node.js, Front-end, HTML, JavaScript, CSS, Back-end, Full-stack, AutoCAD 2D, AutoCAD 3D, Revit, Git, Rhinoceros 3D, Grasshopper, Design, Data Visualization, Content Management Systems (CMS), Adobe, Web, GLSL, Express.js, 3D, APIs, User Interface (UI), User Experience (UX), jQuery, Visualization, Front-end Development, REST, ECMAScript (ES6), REST APIs, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Animation, Web Development, API Integration, Create React App, SEO Tools, 3D Product Modeling, 3D Art, Canvas

Senior Technology Specialist

2014 - 2016
Mode Lab
  • Acted as the tech lead on several computational modeling projects, developing tools for custom CAD applications and web applications.
  • Led several educational programs on technology training—focusing on the adoption of custom tools developed in-house.
  • Led 12 workshops in over two years on parametric modeling in architecture and product design with clients and participants from various technology conferences.
Technologies: CAD, WebGL, GLSL, Node.js, Front-end, HTML, JavaScript, CSS, AutoCAD 2D, AutoCAD 3D, Revit, Git, Rhinoceros 3D, Grasshopper, Design, Data Visualization, Content Management Systems (CMS), Adobe, Web, 3D, APIs, User Interface (UI), User Experience (UX), jQuery, Visualization, Front-end Development, REST APIs, Animation, Web Development, API Integration, Create React App, 3D Product Modeling, 3D Art, Canvas

Hi-BB Personalized Beauty Product Shopper

https://www.hi-bb.com/
I was the lead engineer and lead designer for Hi-BB, a personalized beauty shopper. Find the best product for you in under three minutes.

• Generative LLM (OpenAI)
• Live chat and survey
• Custom semantic search (embeddings)
• Custom decision tree classifier
• Custom taxonomic product classifier
• Retrieval augmentation generation (RAG) pipeline
• Checkouts with CC, Google Pay, and Apple Pay (Stripe)
• Data collection pipeline (publicly available data, mainly with Puppeteer)
• Push and real-time endpoints (Supabase)
• Authentication via phone/text OTP (Twilio)
• Order management, supply chain, customer emails (Resend, SMTP, Stripe)
• Full feature progress web app
• Monitoring, event tagging, and observability
• Training data for reinforcement learning with human feedback (RLHF, under development)
• Automated testing (E2E)
• Admin interface with server-side components

Atlist

https://www.atlist.ai/
Atlist is a tool for making map-based lists of your favorite locations to share with friends. You can make your own map manually or with a little help from AI.

This was a personal passion project. Sharing recommendations for friends visiting my city isn't easy, so it's still a work in progress.

Chat Jams

https://www.chatjams.ai/
A custom chatbot (OpenAI GPT-4 API) to make your Spotify playlist. The website speaks for itself. This was an entirely solo full-stack project, including ideation, back-end engineering, prompt engineering, design, and front-end engineering.

Arena Analyze: ML Performance Dashboard

https://apollo.arena-ai.com/
A one-page prototype of Arena's core product Analyze view. The dashboard is a control/treatment comparison of machine learning (ML) campaigns deployed to Arena's clients. This link is a limited view of the full feature set.

The design challenge was to make this dashboard agnostic to the industry and surface specific and custom KPIs for different clients. The responsive design enables users to "opt-in" to a given metric for further study.

The technical challenge was to surface aggregated metrics and drill-down data. For optimal performance, the top-level aggregations were rendered with D3 and SVG, while the drill-down metrics were rendered with WebGL.

The back end is powered by an LDAP database (Snowflake) coupled with PostgreSQL for app-specific storage.

Role: designer and tech lead of a team of six.

Company Graph

https://vimeo.com/348447657
A demo of Enigma's company graph product, a tool to navigate and analyze the complex relationships between small and medium businesses (SMBs).

I was the tech, design, and product lead on this project.

Cedar: Interactive Real Estate Development

https://www.cedar.build/
Engaged in software engineering for an interactive 3D scene designed for architectural zoning and massing models, with key accomplishments including:

• Implementation of three custom line weights for architectural rendering.
• Development of animated transitions across different design scenarios.
• Integration of ambient occlusion and tone mapping, ensuring optimal performance.
• Conversion of tilemap to GeoJSON format.
• Creation of custom generative modeling solutions.

Fitd 3D Cupboard Configurator

https://fitd-demo.vercel.app
Fitd.com provides clients with the opportunity to design and order custom cupboards within a 3D interface.

I worked on the development of WebGL, the back and front end, and the design (solo project). This comprehensive site was built in collaboration with a startup based out of London, UK.

Technology stack: Node.js, React, WebGL, Three.js, Stripe, Acuity, SendGrid

3D Bike Configurator

https://go-configure.vercel.app/
GoConfigure is a helpful estimating tool that provides you with a layout based on the size of your project area for interior or exterior spaces.

This project is developed using Three.js and React, offering estimates for configuring indoor bike racks. Its key features include:
• Bike count and sizing optimization
• PDF export of specs and floor plan, dynamically updated with user configurations
• Complex design schema and storage configuration
• Complex 3D scene with hundreds of rendered bicycle proxies

GetMyVaccine

https://www.getmyvaccine.org/
GetMyVaccine.org was a volunteer-driven project to help people find COVID-19 vaccine appointments and prevent slot waste at pharmacies. The site deployed an army of scraping bots to aggregate national availability data (USA) and display results in a common interface. GetMyVaccine.org welcomed more than 600,000 unique users in four months.

Emojimation

https://ekatzenstein.github.io/emojimation/
An npm module for animated expressions using SVG. It was built for an AI-powered sentiment-analysis chat room using the Watson Tone Analyzer API.

This package's initial conception was for the React Riot Hackathon 2017—where our team took home the Innovation Award.
2008 - 2010

Master of Architecture Degree in Architecture

University of Pennsylvania - Philadelphia, PA, USA

2004 - 2008

Bachelor of Arts Degree in Architecture and Math

University of Pennsylvania - Philadelphia, PA, USA

Libraries/APIs

Node.js, D3.js, Three.js, React, Mapbox GL, jQuery, REST APIs, WebGL, Puppeteer, Pandas, Stripe API, Stripe, Acuity Scheduling API, Twilio API

Tools

CAD, Rhinoceros 3D, Grasshopper, Adobe, ChatGPT, AutoCAD 2D, AutoCAD 3D, Revit, InDesign CC, Create React App, Canvas, Git, AutoCAD, Figma

Languages

SQL, JavaScript, TypeScript, CSS, HTML, ECMAScript (ES6), GLSL, GraphQL, Python 3, Python, Gremlin

Frameworks

Express.js, Electron, Next.js, Redux, Material UI, Cypress, React Native, Jest, Django

Paradigms

REST, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Agile

Platforms

Web, Visual Studio Code (VS Code), Vercel, Mapbox, MacOS

Storage

PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis

Other

SVG, Data Visualization, 3D, Design, Front-end, Content Management Systems (CMS), UI Animation, OpenAI GPT-4 API, Full-stack, APIs, User Interface (UI), User Experience (UX), Visualization, Dashboards, Front-end Development, Animation, Web Development, API Integration, Chatbots, OpenAI, 3D Product Modeling, Mapbox Styling, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Conversational AI, Zustand, Framer, Web Scraping, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Back-end, OpenAI GPT-3 API, Edge Computing, Llama, Pineapple, Fintech, Progressive Web Applications (PWAs), Design Language, Storybook, SEO Tools, 3D Art, WebSockets, PDF, Neptune, Embeddings from Language Models (ELMo), Supabase, Styled-components, SMTP

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