Kristian Mischke

[PDF Resume]

Problem-solver and thinker with over six years of experience in the industry. I enjoy video game development and am very passionate about utilizing AI and ML to help people with their data. I'm working towards a long-term goal of reforming education by bringing it up to speed with modern technology and learner-centric approaches.

Experience

  • Associate Software Engineer

    Ronday Technologies LLC
    • Adapted quickly to changing requirements and priorities, demonstrating flexibility and a growth mindset in a dynamic startup environment.
    • Conducted thorough code reviews and provided constructive feedback to peers, fostering a culture of collective learning and high-quality code standards.
    • Pursued R&D in Generative AI and within a week, rapidly developed a GPT-4 prompt 3D sandbox world demo.
    • Reduced time to add new backend object types from days to minutes by implementing a generic object data structure stored in Postgres and validated by JSON schemas, streamlining the development process.
    • Integrated Mixpanel analytics for data-driven decision-making, enabling the team to make informed decisions and improve overall application performance.
    • Successfully integrated Unity WebGL building, automated asset exporting, and hosting addressable assets on AWS, improving time to enter platform providing the user with a seamless experience.
    • Managed Dev-Ops build pipeline with Concourse, ensuring a unified build process for optimal simplicity and efficiency.
    • Demonstrated a deep understanding of end-to-end networking stacks, contributed to distributed realtime backend architecture powered by SignalR, Redis, and Postgres.
    • Doubled the number of users capable of being in a space at a given time, by unifying the network paradigm.

    Remote

    August 2021-Present

  • Data Science Research Intern

    RedShred LLC
    • Fine-tuned RoBerta for classifying emails with .909 median f1-score, which outperformed the 0.78 of the prior models.
    • Annotated naval document dataset with Label Studio to train task-specific models for segmenting documents and extracting key actors and events with NER extraction.
    • Highlighted key connections found in naval reports displaying actors, weather events, and locations in a custom interactive dashboard made with streamlit
    • Used MLFlow to manage experiments and track metrics during model training which improved collaboration with team members.

    Catonsville, MD

    March 2021-July 2021

  • Junior Programmer

    Mohawk Games LLC
    • Integrated mod.io API into Old World; added support for modding with AssetBundles and for Translation mods.
    • Assessed capability of GANs (Generative Adversarial Networks through R&D for generating in-game character portraits.
    • Developed a Text Manager class integrating Mohawk's localization system with hierarchical text generation
    • Implemented the in-game "Event Browser" tool in Old World that allows designers and writers to easily modify and create XML files for in-game events.
    • Wrote a Unity tool that allows developers to observe the dependency relations of Unity assets.

    Linthicum, MD

    Jan 2018-July 2021

Education

  • University of Maryland, Baltimore County

    Bachelor of Science, Computer Science (Game Development Track)

    Minor in Applied Linguistics

    Outstanding Senior in Computer Science

    3.942 GPA

    Baltimore, MD

    May 2021

Projects

  • Recurring Moment

    • Conceptualized, Pitched, and Prototyped original idea during the first 3 weeks of class.
    • Acted as Lead Designer and interfaced with the Art & Programming teams at weekly meetings.
    • Project management with SCRUM development sprints and burndown charts
    • Implemented core mechanics and sparse data structures to store time-travel data.

    Spring 2021-

  • Schess: A Chess Battle-Royal Variant

    schessgame.com
    • Acted as the Lead Programmer during and after a 48-hour game jam with three other friends.
    • Responsible for game-logic, and networking code using Remote Procedure Calls (RPCs) with Photon Unity Networking (PUN) in the Unity 3D game engine.

    Aug 2020-Present

  • Data with a K

    Devs with a K LLC
    • Ideated data abstraction layer to handle different kinds of data.
    • Architectured data pipelining suite in Python backed by Cassandra and Redis.
    • Developed receipt processing API that stitches multiple receipt images together using OCR to extract receipt items and costs.
    • Accelerated knowledge of using Docker with Nvidia GPUs and AMD RoCM APUs for Machine Learning applications.
    • Implemented security standards with password rotation using Vault and authentication with Auth0 JWTs

    2022-Present

  • Applying the Cascaded Finite State Grammar Induction Model to Trading Card Game Corpora

    CMSC 473 Intro to NLP Class @ UMBC
    • Proposed the original idea for this final group project.
    • Implemented-with a group of 3 peers-a Grammar Induction algorithm in Python from an academic paper that uses a cascaded chunking algorithm with HMMs.
    • We analyzed model performance using perplexity, and we applied it to Trading Card Games like Magic: the Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh! and others.

    Fall 2020-

  • "Magic Random Gathering"

    • Developed AI magic card generators combining text and image Generative AI.
    • Created modified BNF grammar for card generation until switching to GPT-3 when it was released.
    • Card art generation with VQGAN+CLIP and later Stable Diffusion and Midjourney
    • Printed hundreds of cards & played dozens of games, including at a local game store!

    2019-Present

  • GroupFormer

    • AGILE and GitFlow frameworks for development sprints
    • Developed front-end form for setting up the GroupFormer project using Django, HTML, and JQuery.
    • Collaborated with teammates to develop algorithm for scoring participant groupings.
    • Integrated Django authentication to secure instructor's forms.

    Spring 2021-

  • Other Note-Worthy Classes from UMBC

    • Computer Graphics (Spring 2020) Implemented ray-tracing algorithm in C++. Used shaders and GLEW and GLSL to push vertices to the render pipeline. We used Git version control to track progress.
    • Graphics for Games (Fall 2020). Navigated the Unreal Engine C++ source code. Projects focused on implementing graphics algorithms as Blueprints, Plugins, and Engine modifications.

    2020-

  • Linux Chess Kernel Modules

    CMSC 421 Operating Systems class @ UMBC
    • Implemented a device module in C to store and manage chess game states across multiple file pointers; with the option to play against an AI opponent using the min-max with alpha-beta pruning algorithm.
    • Only student out of the three sections of the course to complete all the extra credit and be eligible for the course-wide tournament.

    Spring 2020-

Volunteer Work & Clubs

  • Volunteer Tutor

    Crossroads Homeschool CO-OP
    • Managed classes containing about a dozen Middle- or High-School students
    • Developed HS Programming curriculum based off the book Learning Processing by Daniel Shiffman.
    • Taught students about variables, program flow, and basic problem-solving using Scratch by MIT.
    • Integrated my YouTube video tutorials for individualized instruction for the 2018-2020 School Years.
    • Utilized the CodeHS online curriculum for managing and tracking student assignments for a HS Web Design class.

    Baltimore, MD

    2014-2021

  • Member & Project Lead Programmer

    UMBC Game Developers Club
    • Acted as Lead Programmer for Role Playing Gamble, one of the club 2018-2019 games.
    • Managed tasks with a group of 2 other programmers throughout the duration of the project, using Git for versioning & merging and Unity 3D & C# technologies for development.

    Fall 2018-Fall 2019