Simon Szalai
Verified Expert in Engineering
AI Specialist and Software Developer
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Toptal member since February 8, 2022
Simon is an accomplished software craftsman with over six years of experience in AI, data science, and application development. His mastery of Python and TypeScript, combined with his ability to quickly master new technologies, sets him apart. He is the co-founder and CTO of a vertical farming startup that raised over $400k so far. He secured third place at the Creative Destruction Labs Quantum Hackathon with the first-ever implementation of the Quantum Active Inference algorithm.
Portfolio
Experience
Availability
Preferred Environment
MacOS, Linux, Visual Studio Code (VS Code), TypeScript, Python, PyTorch, TensorFlow, Deepnote, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud
The most amazing...
...project I completed is the Quantum Active Inference algorithm, steering an agent through environments extending into the Quantum Realm.
Work Experience
Co-founder | CTO
Amaru Wellness
- Implemented a web platform in React Remix from scratch, including a custom scheduler, payments, contract signing and surveys.
- Implemented a React Native mobile app from scratch, including authentication, Stripe payments, and API communication with a Remix back end.
- Designed the UI/UX of a desktop web and mobile app for ease of use and an intuitive experience.
Co-founder | CTO
Workflow Pro
- Designed and implemented a serverless React application from scratch to manage the daily operations of a CNC manufacturing company using React and Firebase.
- Maintained the React/Firebase app in production for four years, including updates, bug fixes, and smaller features.
- Rebuilt the whole app in React/Remix for better UX and speed and to overcome some inherent limitations of serverless architecture.
- Started developing a natural language interface for the operational data collected by the platform I previously built that generates SQL queries from natural language, runs them, and uses the returned data as context to formulate the answers.
- Built an integration with the Hungarian Tax Authority's (NAV) API.
Co-founder | CTO
Raiz Vertical Farms
- Built a first-principles-based simulation to model the behavior of the vertical farm under different weather conditions. This enables us to run experiments much faster and accurately predict OPEX before deployment.
- Designed and implemented an environment control system from scratch.
- Contributed to conceptualizing tokenized fractional farm financing.
Senior Full-stack Developer
Quantified Citizen
- Designed and built a data processing pipeline using Python and Dagster that cleaned and normalized both real-time and historical data, preparing it for analysis.
- Cleaned, normalized, analyzed, and visualized data collected through the mobile platform. This included data collected over five years using multiple applications, frameworks, and platforms, each containing errors that resulted in polluted data.
- Implemented a React app embedded in a Flutter web view to display study results generated by the data pipeline.
AI Specialist
Bicameral NFT
- Developed a machine learning pipeline to turn brainwave data and digital artwork into a unique animated art piece using Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs).
- Recruited a team to use this technology to create an NFT collection of 5,000 pieces on the Ethereum blockchain.
- Laid the foundations for the technology to be deployed as an API in the future.
Full-stack Engineer
KitchenMate
- Designed and implemented control software running on an Android tablet for the hot food kiosk using Ionic React and Node.js.
- Evolved requirements constantly despite a lot of ambiguity.
- Oversaw the software integration of many different hardware systems (AI vision system, induction cookers, cameras, payment terminals, smart fridge, WiFi hotspot, etc.).
- Expanded a user-facing mobile app and internal tools using JavaScript.
Full-stack Engineer
SynerScope
- Executed the transition of SynerScope's entire data management platform from an on-premises app to a microservices-based cloud-native solution on Azure.
- Increased the prediction accuracy of a client's required tools and expertise for field-work of their employees from 80% to 99.98% on two million visits, saving approximately 40 million EUR a year in collaboration with my team.
- Engineered data pipelines to move documents, metadata, text, and images between Hadoop, Azure, and various databases.
- Deployed an image vectorizer model to Azure Cloud as a REST API using Docker.
Software Engineer
Dekimo Experts
- Developed a computer vision product to classify cells in microscope images.
- Delivered core development in C++, UI in QML using Qt5, image manipulation in OpenCV.
- Contributed to the project while learning C++ autonomously from zero.
Co-founder | CTO
Intersection Records
- Set up an electronic record label, including website, distribution, and promotion.
- Created artwork, released, and promoted over ten albums.
- Helped organize live events with artists to promote the albums.
Experience
Quantum Active Inference
https://github.com/simonszalai/Creative-Destruction-Quantum-Hackathon-2022Transform Data into Insights with Dagster and Deepnote Lecture
SorterBot
https://github.com/simonszalai/sorterbot_cloudEducation
Master's Degree in Business Administration (MBA)
Quantic School of Business and Technology - Online
Bachelor's Degree in Chemistry
University of Szeged - Szeged, Hungary
Certifications
Qiskit Global Summer School on Quantum Machine Learning
IBM
Deep Reinforcement Learning Nanodegree
Udacity
Deep Learning by Andrew Ng
Coursera
Skills
Libraries/APIs
Node.js, React, Mantine, Stripe API, PyTorch, Pandas, Matplotlib, Stripe, SurveyJS, OpenAI API, TensorFlow, OpenCV, Puppeteer
Tools
ChatGPT, Expo, You Only Look Once (YOLO), LabVIEW, Photoshop CC
Languages
TypeScript, Python, JavaScript, Go, C++
Frameworks
React Native, Remix, Qt, Flutter, Django, Redux
Platforms
MacOS, Visual Studio Code (VS Code), Firebase, Linux, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Docker, Raspberry Pi, WordPress, Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
Storage
PostgreSQL, Google Cloud, Google Cloud Storage
Paradigms
UI Design, UX Design, HIPAA Compliance
Other
Deepnote, Data Collection, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Computer Vision, Dagster, Data Science, Data Engineering, OpenAI GPT-3 API, OpenAI GPT-4 API, Prompt Engineering, Machine Learning, Full-stack, Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), Full-stack Development, API Integration, Data Analysis, Data Cleansing, Electronic Sensors, Process Simulation, Deep Learning, Predictive Modeling, Object Detection, OpenAI, AI Chatbots, Open-source LLMs, Large Language Models (LLMs), Natural Language Processing (NLP), Business Administration, Reinforcement Learning, Deep Reinforcement Learning, Quantum Machine Learning, Quantum Computing, ISO Compliance, Robotics, Retrieval-augmented Generation (RAG), Google Cloud Functions, Firebase Cloud Functions, Kinde, Progressive Web Applications (PWAs), APIs, Fly.io
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