Koen Deschacht
Verified Expert in Engineering
Machine Learning Developer
Antwerp, Belgium
Toptal member since September 30, 2019
Koen is a passionate software developer with a PhD in machine learning. He's worked for startups and enterprise clients and has experience with a wide range of technologies (machine learning, web apps, web scraping) and languages (Java, JavaScript, Python, Rust). With a love of learning, excellent communication skills, and experience leading and working teams of all sizes, you can be sure Koen will hit the ground running on your project.
Portfolio
Experience
- Java - 10 years
- REST - 8 years
- JavaScript - 6 years
- Machine Learning - 5 years
- SQL - 3 years
- Python - 2 years
- Angular - 2 years
- Vue - 2 years
Availability
Preferred Environment
PyCharm, CLion, Git, IntelliJ IDEA
The most amazing...
...project I've worked with Microsoft to bring Hyperledger Fabric to the Azure cloud.
Work Experience
Web Developer
Colstart AI
- Created a website that allowed users to visually browse and manage their data.
- Optimized the website for mobile users and visually impaired users.
- Implemented an Angular front end that ingested data from a back-end API.
Founder
Stepwise
- Created a smart digital coach for runners using machine learning in Java.
- Built a novel visualization of a runner's progress in Java.
- Developed an Android and iOS mobile app with a shared Rust native library and Vue.js user interface.
- Performed experiments to measure market demand using Google Ads and Google Analytics.
- Conducted interviews with potential customers which resulted in identifying pain points, must-have features, and nice-to-have elements.
Blockchain Developer
Cegeka
- Built a large number of blockchain proofs-of-concept for Belgian and Dutch banks and insurers. These applications ran on the Ethereum or Hyperledger Fabric blockchain, used a Spring Boot back end and an Angular front end.
- Developed an AI algorithm for the automatic reconciliation of payments to assist accountants. The reconciled payments and additions by the accountant were then stored on the Ethereum blockchain.
- Created an Xamarin application for Android tablets and iPads with a graphical interface to define a new blockchain application and automatically generate contracts for Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric.
- Assisted Microsoft in the creation of an Azure template to deploy Hyperledger Fabric to the Azure cloud.
CTO
ScriptBook
- Designed a scalable and secure software infrastructure. Recruited a team of software developers and machine learning experts. Gave background information on the used technologies to our customers.
- Composed multiple machine learning algorithms using Scikit-learn to analyze a movie script, character development, sentiment progression, predicted box office success, and market positioning.
- Developed an Angular app that allowed end users to upload a new movie script and to view the results of the automatic analysis.
- Created graphs in D3.js to display predicted range of box office earnings, positioning of the movie with respect to other movies, characters in the movie, sentiment, and so on.
- Built a crawler for data on movies from public websites using Beautiful Soup and Python.
Software Developer
NoisyChannels
- Built a Java application that would analyze the content of incoming emails using natural language processing and automatically route the email to the correct department.
- Constructed a web scraper using Java and Jsoup to extract information from web pages for a large HR company to keep track of legal updates and changes.
- Developed an Angular website to view the extracted website information.
Web Developer
Foreach
- Developed a public website of a large Belgian newspaper using Java, Spring, and JSP.
- Implemented a search engine that indexed more than a million newspaper articles and was updated in real-time using Java and Solr.
- Constructed a search results page for a large Belgian restaurant platform using Java and Solr.
- Built the back end of a website (Java, Spring) where journalists write their online and newspaper articles and select and edit pictures.
- Improved the speed of a slow Umbraco C# website by profiling and removing bottlenecks—achieving an average 10x speedup.
Lead Developer
Cult
- Developed a crawler using Java for collecting geolocations.
- Built an iOS app that allowed users to chat and share images based on geolocation.
- Composed a novel algorithm to determine the relatedness of users based on visited locations and shared friends.
PhD and Research Assistant
KU Leuven
- Used natural language processing in Java to extract names, locations, and actions from fan scripts.
- Developed a novel latent model for weakly unsupervised machine learning on texts.
- Coached several students in the development of their master theses.
Experience
Count-db
https://github.com/koendeschacht/count-dbTerashare
http://terashare.net/Education
PhD Degree in Computer Science
KU Leuven - Leuven, Belgium
Master's Degree in Informatics (Computer Science)
KU Leuven - Leuven, Belgium
Skills
Libraries/APIs
Vue 2, Vue, Node.js, Web3.js, D3.js, jQuery, Scikit-learn, Jsoup, MALLET, Beautiful Soup
Tools
IntelliJ IDEA, Git, CLion, PyCharm, Cluster, Google Analytics, Solr, Stanford CoreNLP
Languages
Java, Python 3, JavaScript, Python, CSS, Sass, C#, Objective-C, Rust, Java 10, Bash Script, SQL
Paradigms
Agile Software Development, Concurrent Programming, Scrum, REST
Frameworks
Angular, Spring Boot, Spring, Thymeleaf, Jakarta Server Pages (JSP), Apache Struts 2
Platforms
Android, Linux, Ethereum, Hyperledger Fabric, Google Ads, Blockchain
Storage
Databases, MySQL, Cassandra, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle SQL, LevelDB, RocksDB
Other
Natural Language Processing (NLP), Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPT), Data Scraping, Machine Learning, Regression Modeling, Models, Scrum Master
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