Zach Archer
I create digital experiences for humans to enjoy.
Work Experience
2020–
Apple
Senior Software Engineer
- Application development in a team environment, including gathering requirements, writing project proposals, scheduling and delegating tasks, deploying to cloud servers, and creating analytics dashboards.
- Developed full stack applications for pre-silicon emulation and debugging, utilizing datasets larger than 1TB.
- Documented and advocated for best practices, including component reuse, and building wrapper classes and mixins to solve UI challenges site-wide.
- Mentored new developers, to share knowledge and promote code quality throughout the organization.
2007–
Control Z, Inc.
Senior Software Developer
- Developed software and hardware for diverse platforms, including mobile devices, and large-scale interactive experiences.
- Developed tools to accelerate workflows, enabling developers to simulate firmware, designers to efficiently construct UI, and non-programmers to customize software behavior and appearance.
- Solved graphical and motion design challenges using WebGL and GLSL shaders, enabling visual experiences with millions of sprites.
- Developed live coding frameworks, virtual machines, and network architecture for embedded platforms, enabling rapid iteration and experimentation on-site.
- Implemented text and graphics rendering layers on embedded systems, with compression to fit large character sets, and display maps in realtime.
2006–
Second Story Interactive Studios
Interactive Developer
- Developed web and interactive media experiences to be responsive, engaging, and performant.
- Collaborated with designers to create fresh user interfaces and graphical effects.
- Built a configurable website framework, allowing designers to modify and perfect their visual designs, without learning a programming language.
- Managed large data sets, and built CMS applications and custom APIs to store, retrieve, and search assets.
Skills
- Code architecture
- Code review
- Compression
- Configuration driven development
- Debugging
- Graphics
- Hardware prototyping
- Human-centric interfaces
- Live coding
- Mentoring
- Motion design
- PCB design
- Project planning
- Refactoring
- Simulators
- Software prototyping
- Soldering and assembly
- UI Development
- Unit testing
Technologies
- Arduino
- Autodesk EAGLE
- ARM
- Bootstrap
- C
- C++
- CSS
- Django
- Docker
- ESP32
- FreeRTOS
- Git
- GLSL
- HTML
- iOS
- JavaScript
- Jira
- KiCad
- Linux
- MySQL
- Node.js
- Objective-C
- OpenGL
- OpenSCAD
- PixiJS
- Python
- React
- Redux
- Sass
- Three.js
- TypeScript
- WebGL
- Webpack
- Xcode
Speaking Engagements
2019
- Teardown Conference “e-Paper: A Complete Explanation”
2018
- Hackaday Superconference “Live Coding a 40-Foot LED Sign”
2018
- Teardown Conference “Programming For The Eye”
Interviews
2020
- Crosscut, KCTS 9 “Art Seen: The calculated creativity of coding”
2019
- The Amp Hour Electronics Podcast “Stories from Teardown 2019”