Colin Bayer

e-mail: vogon at outlook.com (other contact information available upon request)

employment experience

Carbon Robotics, Seattle, WA

Senior Software Engineer, Frontend, 5/2025 –

Developing frontend management, orchestration, and teleoperations software for an agricultural robotics company with hundreds of customers and deployed units worldwide, using TypeScript and React. Designing and building backend services for configuring and dispatching autonomous agricultural equipment using Golang and PostgreSQL. Working closely in a small team with stakeholders in UX, product, and field operations to ship new autonomous capabilities on a short timeline constrained by customer requirements and the changing of the seasons.

anti software software club, remote

cofounder, 9/2019 – 12/2024

Developed and operated cohost.org, a subscription-funded, long-form social media site with ~200,000 lifetime users, through the whole product cycle from corporate formation to wind-down. Built the software stack in TypeScript with React on node.js and Kubernetes with an engineering team of two, with informal ownership of backend, optimization, refactoring, and data portability. Worked with peers specializing in UX and customer service to deliver requested features as quickly and completely as possible under tight resource limitations. Owned various business requirements including compliance filings and tax matters.

University of Washington, Seattle, WA

Research Scientist/Engineer 2, 6/2015 – 9/2019

Developed (as a co-lead) Mozak, a web-based game which allowed laypeople to collaborate with neuroscientists on structural models of neurons. Worked across the whole stack on a game client in TypeScript with React, CMS in Ruby, and scientific computing pipeline in Python. Operated CMS and scientific computing pipeline on Kubernetes. Shadowed neuroscientists to inform interaction design, making significant improvements in productivity that were backported to their existing workflow. Adapted research model reconstruction algorithms to production for performance and extensibility. Worked closely with scientists and players to deliver ongoing improvements.

University of Washington, Seattle, WA

Developer, 12/2013 – 6/2015

Developed Nanocrafter, a web-based game which allowed laypeople to collaborate with synthetic biologists to prototype circuits for DNA computing, using ActionScript, Flex, and Ruby. Built new functionality across the stack for level editing and peer review. Assisted in maintaining compatibility with legacy components while rewriting CMS for extensibility and security.

Microsoft Corporation, Mountain View, CA

SDE II, 9/2012 – 9/2013

Built new functionality (autocomplete and Streetside) for the Windows 8/8.1 Bing Maps client using C# and XAML. Developed prototype functionality for a demo to VIPs under time pressure while not slipping production deadlines. Worked with management to iterate rapidly based on ongoing feedback. Built prototypes with C#, XAML, and MonoGame to demonstrate emerging object recognition, facial recognition, and OCR capabilities to other development teams.

Microsoft Corporation, Mountain View, CA

SDE II, 6/2008 – 9/2012

Developed mobile applications for voice control in Java on BlackBerry OS. Developed the system voice control component for Windows Phone 7, 7.5, and 8 in C# and C++; major contributions were designing and implementing a strategy for minimizing the reliability impact of application code hosted in the core OS, and APIs for interoperating securely with extensions developed by third parties. Worked closely with designers to deliver a fluid UX in an environment where prototypes were expensive. Served as security point-of-contact for a team of ~20. Wrote and reviewed threat models. Assisted other teams with threat modeling. Worked with PM and UX to redesign features to minimize security risk.

Microsoft Corporation, Mountain View, CA

SDE Intern, 6/2007 – 9/2007

Measured boot performance for the Mediaroom IPTV platform across a family of set-top boxes. Identified issues with slow boot times. Resolved firmware issues and worked with vendor hardware engineers to resolve hardware issues.

skills

proficient and fresh:

• JavaScript/TypeScript, on Node and in the browser
• React and Redux
• HTML5, CSS and Sass
• (small-scale) Kubernetes
• cloud computing (AWS and DigitalOcean)
• SQL (mostly Postgres)

proficient but out of practice:

• C and C++9x on Win32 and Linux
• C# (up to C# 5.0 and the Windows Runtime APIs on Windows 8)
• Ruby
• Python
• the secure software development lifecycle, and general defensive information security
• 3D graphics (with WebGL and GLSL)
• speech recognition and synthesis software packages and technologies (Microsoft Speech API, VoiceXML)

still developing:

• Golang

• Rust

• small-scale product and electronic design:

• low-speed, digital-signal electronic design

• printed circuit board layout (with KiCad)

• embedded software for Raspberry Pi RP2xxx microcontrollers

• FPGA gateware development in Verilog (with Active-HDL and Quartus Prime)

• computer-aided mechanical design (with Fusion 360, Onshape, and Ansys), with design for FDM 3D printing

education

University of Washington, Seattle, 9/2005–6/2008 (overall GPA: 3.71)

Bachelor of Science, Computer Science (majors GPA: 3.9) Bachelor of Arts, Linguistics (majors GPA: 3.82)

Instructional lab assistant for CSE 370 "Intro to Digital Design" and CSE 378 "Machine Organization and Assembly Language". Research assistant in the lab of Oren Etzioni, developing (with Doug Downey) Telex, an efficient pipelined batch implementation of Lex, an algorithm for named entity delimitation.

Electives: information security; operating systems; deep-structure analysis for natural language processing; compiler construction; artificial intelligence; 3 years of Japanese; linguistic analysis of Japanese.