Blake Skaja
Software Engineer - Iowa State Student - Active Leader - Aspiring Coach
Software Engineer - Iowa State Student - Active Leader - Aspiring Coach
Throughout my time at Iowa State, I have been fortunate enough to take several courses and have multiple academic
experiences that have allowed me to grow as a Software Engineer.
I want to work for the next 3 to 5 years as a Software Development Engineer. I want to be on the front lines of
solving software problems, by both helping architect solutions and then implementing the code. I do see myself,
however, eventually transitioning into a management role, on either the technical side or possibly even the
product / business side. I have always enjoyed solving problems and I think moving into a management role is
simply another application of problem solving.
Getting an opportunity to take some general education courses while balancing my engineering course load has
allowed me to use my engineering problem solving mindset to tackle a different set of problems. Most of the electives that I
have taken, whether it be Developmental Psychology, Economics or Leadership Studies have allowed me to grow as an individual
and learn new techniques that I can then apply to within my major. For example, I have learned a ton of concepts from my
Leadership course that I wil be able to use when managing a team one day.
The Software Engineering program at Iowa State has prepared me to deal with all sorts of real world problems, including system design, working in groups and being able to analyze a problem from an economic perspective. In both my COM S 309 course, as well as my senior design class, I have been able to think of a problem, develop a complex solution and then implement that solution with a team. This has greatly prepared me for real world experiences, as this is they type of work that has occurred in my internships and will continue to happen in my full time career. More so, I have gained the confidence to try new and innovate things, while being able to balance the level of risk and reward. When presented with a problem at my previous internship, I was confident in my abilities and was able to speak up during meetings if I thought there was a better possible solution. If there as anything that I could change about my past 4 years, I would have gotten more involved in hack-a-thons. I think that those are great opportunities to learn new and current technologies in a rapid development environment. No matter how old you are, it is always good to continue learning and expanding your current technology comfort levels. All in all, however, I wouldn't trade my time at Iowa State for anything.
Summers of 2013 and 2014
I spent the summers after both my senior year of high school and my freshmen year of college working as a QA Intern. I was able to get hands on experience in testing large scale applications. My responsibilities included both manual and automated testing, mainly using jUnit.
Summer of 2015
I spent the summer after my sophomore year of college working as a Software Engineering Intern. At Workiva, I was able to work in web development, mainly using Dart. I was assigned to the datatables team, which was in charge of creating an application similar to Microsoft Excel. I was responsible for creating keyboard shortcuts, testing and fixing browser compatibility issues, and both designing and implementing the UI framework for the font and value formatting in the application.
Summer of 2016
I will be spent my summer of 2016 on Wall Street in NYC, working for S&P Global Market Intelligence as a Software Engineering Intern. Although I had many other internship offers from more traditional software engineering employers, spending a summer working and learning in NYC was an opportunity that I couldn't pass up.
Future
Starting in July of 2017, I will be working fulltime for Amazon as a Software Engineer on the Consumer Experience Team.
January 2014 - August 2016
I started working with this group as a freshmen through the Iowa State Honor's Program. During my time, I learned about DNA Origami, as well as helped to create a plugin for an open source program called caDNAno.
January 2015 - Present
I have been working as a COMS 228 TA for the past 3 semesters and plan on continuing teaching until I graduate in the spring. As a TA, I am responsible for teaching a recitation once per week to roughly 30 students, as well as helping design and grade homework/tests.
2016
After my summer of interning at Workiva, a few interns and I decided that Iowa State University could use a club that focused on web development. By founding the Web Developement Club, we aimed to teach students of all skill levels the languages, tools and frameworks that can be used to build websites.
2013 - Present
Two of my favorite things are football and teaching people new skills. By helping coach my high school football team for the past 4 years during two-a-days, I am able to get the best of both of those worlds.
My roommates and I began to play DraftKings a lot during the fall of 2015. DraftKings is similar to fantasy football. Each week, you are given a salary cap and have to pick a team. Each player has a different salary, so you must pick and choose which players you want each week.
This application helps automate that process by using projections to try to build the ideal lineup.
This project was inspired after playing countless rounds of LOL with my roommates and not being able to decide on which person should play which lane.
This application uses the LOL API to gather stats, determine each players best role, and builds a team depending on team composition and which champions are currently strong.
As it is apparent that AI is going to be an important part of computing in the future, I felt like I should get some experience in this area of expertise.
This application uses Adaptive AI to learn an opponents playstyle and adapts to perform better in the future.
Reversi is one of the simplest games to learn, yet incredibly tough to master.
This game made using Unity uses a MiniMax algorithem to make a tough and fun to play AI.
Space flight simulation that was designed as a COMS 309 Project. Our project won the "Best Project Award", selected from roughly 40 teams.
Our game included a race mode, a voxel system for ship building and was designed to be used with the Oculus Rift for complete immersion.
My roommate and I are currently in the process of completing this project. We are using a Raspberry Pi along with stepper motors to create a machine that can make the perfect mix drink.
We have all sorts of ideas for this project, just not enough time. We are hoping to have our first prototype finished by the end of 2016.
I have always been intrigued with what makes some people succeed and others fail.
My freshmen year of college, I wrote an English paper on this idea of success. I received high marks for my work, as well as citations from other blogs. I also learned a ton about the traits required to succeed in all aspects of life.
In this paper, I attempt to break down life into 5 categories and then define success in each of these areas. By breaking down people who are successful in these areas of life, I get characteristics that are crucial to success in each individual field. I look for traits of successful people that are similar across all these fields and finally draw conclusions based on my findings.
Built a hardware system for 4 way stoplight with turn signals and police control.
This project was completed as part of my CPRE 281 (digital logic) course final. It earned perfect marks and taught me a ton about programming at a lower level.
I have earned this award 5 out of 6 semsters. This shows that I consistantly put in the time and effort required to earn great grades.
Received this award my senior year of football. Was given to the player who best represented "The Crimson Way" both on and off the field.
Selected as 1 of roughly 400 students to join the Iowa State Honors Program as a freshmen. This has given me opportunities to take special honors course with smaller class sizes, as well as allowing me to network with other professionally minded college students.
Received this award my sophomore year of college. Our project was selected as the best - by students and faculty - from roughly 40 groups. Our project was a space flight simulation using the Oculus Rift. More details on this project can be viewed here
Earned both the Presidental Scholarship and a Liberal Arts and Sciences Scholarship when chosing to attend Iowa State University.
