Ed Porras

Clojure Backend Software Engineer. Previously: C, C++, Ruby.

About

Venezuelan-born, naturalized US-citizen living in Lyon.

Professional Experience

While starting my masters, I began working for a consulting startup named Livewire doing projects in the broadcast field and joined full-time after graduation.

I took a short break to work as an adjunct-lecturer for the CISE Department at the University of Florida in Gainesville teaching object-oriented programming concepts and web design basics.

I rejoined Livewire at a point where it was being acquired by the Nagravision/Kudelski group. At this point, we had begun shifting our focus and developed an in-house embedded middleware solution based on Broadcom & ST systems that we deployed to operators worldwide.

In 2012, I shifted gears away from embedded systems onto web-backend tools for Motologic. Most of the code was Rails-like pipeline running on AWS but I was tasked with optimizing some portions of the pipeline using Ruby C-extensions.

Since then, I've relocated to Lyon and nowadays I'm doing backend clojure at Oscaro.

Diversions

I write music under the names Bang Chemistry and Friends of Fido, often collaborating with Syntripital. In 2007, we paired up to write Quadrants for Zumobi's Beta launch video. They reached out again in 2015 in need for their ZBi Solution marketing video which resulted in the track Miss Daisy. In 2017, I wrote three ambient tracks that were integrated into the VR demo for the Never Built NY exhibit at the Queens Museum. The demo was driven by the Visual Vocal VR app (RIP) and the tracks were integrated into it as well.

Most of my music work is synth & DAW-based with a couple of (not great) attempts at incorporating guitar. I've always been attracted to the rhytmic portion of our compositions so two years ago I got my partner's blessing and picked up a used Roland TD-17KV. I've upgraded it with a VH-10 and added a CY-13R, switching one of the CY-8s to be a second crash (which makes it much easier when using it on Rock Band). I set myself a goal to practice at least 20 minutes per dat, which I do with a Melodics subscription.

I volunteer as the technical contact for WGOT-LP, a low-power station in Gainesville. The crew of volunteers had taken care of all the permits and frequency application but needed help with the technical aspect. I had no radio experience but, as we were to operate without a studio with all producers creating podcasts, I helped get us on the air with a custom solution that relied on Campcaster (now Airtime), some rudimentary dropbox scripts, and a custom ruby-based scraper to automate downloading of syndicated programs. While at it, I hosted Music Mosaic, an eclectic radio program that aired between 2008 and 2014. I miss doing this but it's too time consuming. When I do find the time and right set of tracks, I throw together a mix and upload it to mixcloud.