Jesper Kristensen
Verified Expert in Engineering
Data Science Developer
New York City, United States
Toptal member since September 19, 2022
Jesper loves solving problems and helping develop next-generation engineering systems. He is motivated by a deep drive to create excellent solutions and aims to be challenged while moving companies forward. Jesper enjoys working on a budget and delivering on strict time restrictions—it's challenging and exciting.
Portfolio
Experience
- Computer Science - 12 years
- Python 3 - 10 years
- Linux - 10 years
- PyCharm - 6 years
- Ethereum - 5 years
- Solidity - 3 years
- Remix IDE - 3 years
Availability
Preferred Environment
Slack, Solidity, Python 3, Shell, Linux, Git, Visual Studio Code (VS Code), PyCharm, Remix IDE, MetaMask
The most amazing...
...product I've co-developed is a novel decentralized finance (DeFi) options protocol called Panoptic. I wrote its whitepaper and co-wrote the code.
Work Experience
Chief Operating Officer
Panoptic
- Helped build, test, and deploy the underlying protocol in Solidity. I worked in an engineering capacity and was responsible for getting our entire core codebase ready for an audit.
- Met with VCs and investors to raise funds for our seed round and helped raise millions of dollars for the company.
- Support the definition and development of the hiring process and operations.
- Took responsibility for preparing our product for launch on Mainnet, including getting it ready to go to testnet and undergoing several audits while working with strict timelines and budget.
Head of Research
Advanced Blockchain
- Created the Advanced Blockchain Research (AB.Research) organization, scaling AB.Research from 0 to 15 people in five months while running the critical parts of the hiring process.
- Owned the annual budget management of millions of dollars and helped lead an incubation funding round with more than $3 million raised for a company whose name cannot be disclosed.
- Delivered six peer-reviewed papers in four months to ramp up the research presence on topics such as novel AMM design, novel exotic options design, and more. I won the best paper award at Macau '22 for one of them.
- Created three divisions—Internal Research, External Research, and Research to Product Pipeline—from the ground up with a specific focus on building and incubating, spearheading all divisions.
- Established KPIs for AB.Research and the divisions while owning and leading critical new-product research, development, and the product pipeline.
- Managed the overall day-to-day research and development, providing research help to all AB product lines and the AB.Ventures team. Created and ran technical internal sessions known as "Research goes on-chain."
Quantitative Developer
Balyasny Asset Management
- Wrote a trading platform with a portfolio manager. The platform—key to alpha generation researchers—was written in Python and worked by reading and writing data to the disk in binary on a Linux machine.
- Collaborated on the Machine Learning Quant Team at BAM. I worked closely with quant researchers bringing data into the platform for their alpha generation strategies.
- Helped scale the platform to work with more and broader data sets, building out and expanding its feature set—like converting from a Bloomberg feed to a third-party provider—and surfacing new datasets from the software to the quants.
Senior Software Engineer – Full Stack
Flatiron
- Helped build and scale up a new team of five people. Developed and maintained our provider platform, including its data ingestion.
- Owned the platform's up-time during on-call rotation.
- Won multiple awards within the company, including the "best hackathon" for proving that Kafka can help improve data delivery.
Lead R&D Engineer
General Electric
- Improved the GE Aviation testing technology leading to savings of $600,000 per year. Helped advance the GE Research organization, bringing it to a new level of optimization technologies.
- Worked on machine learning, AI topics, and GE digital twins. Contributed to data science topics in Linux and Python.
- Delivered key results to the executive level and held weekly customer meetings with GE Power, GE Aviation, and other businesses. This allowed a deep understanding of how to work with business partners and stakeholders.
- Contributed to GE Research operating like an internal center of excellence, counting on an inner group of highly skilled technical consultants.
Experience
New Decentralized Finance Options Protocol
https://www.panoptic.xyz/Co-authored a Book on AMMs
https://amazon.com/Automated-Market-Makers-Decentralized-Cryptocurrency/dp/1484286154/ERC1155 Token Project
https://soggy-hen.surge.sh/ERC20 Dashboard
https://dashy-sable.vercel.app/Education
PhD in Computer Science and Applied Physics
Cornell University - Ithaca, NY, USA
Master's Degree in Applied and Engineering Physics
Cornell University - Ithaca, NY
Master of Engineering Degree in Engineering Physics
Cornell University - Ithaca, NY, USA
Bachelor's Degree in Applied Physics
Technical University of Denmark - Kgs Lyngby, Denmark
Certifications
Encode Solidity Expert Bootcamp
Encode Club
Blockchain Bootcamp
Metana.io
Ethereum and Solidity: The Complete Developer Guide
Udemy
Advanced Solidity: Understanding and Optimizing Gas Costs
Udemy
Skills
Libraries/APIs
Web3.js, Node.js
Tools
Git, PyCharm, Remix IDE, MetaMask, GitHub, Shell, Slack
Languages
Solidity, Python 3, JavaScript, Solidity Assembly
Frameworks
Alchemy, Hardhat
Paradigms
DevOps, Agile, Management
Platforms
Linux, Ethereum, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Blockchain, Visual Studio Code (VS Code)
Other
Computer Science, Applied Physics, Web3, Crypto, Ethers.js, Decentralized Finance (DeFi), Non-fungible Tokens (NFT), Smart Contracts, Optimization, GitHub Actions, Applied Mathematics, OpenSea, Quantitative Finance, Financial Options, Mathematics, Operations, Foundry
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