Resume
John Scolaro
I'm a senior software developer with a wide range of experience across many different technologies. I love writing software and building things. I mean, I made this whole website for fun! Surely that counts for something.
I have the most experience working in client-facing roles on Python based web applications, large-scale data analysis / visualisation, and large distributed systems.
Experience
Amazon
Software Engineer
2026 - Present
- I help people buy groceries on Amazon.
Dark Forest Research
Chief Technology Officer
2025
- Designed and implemented high-performance Python microservices interacting with centralised exchange APIs and smart contracts, reliably trading millions of dollars across multiple exchanges.
- Developed core trading logic, inventory and risk management systems, and real-time monitoring and alerting pipelines.
- Drove architectural and infrastructure decisions from initial design through to deployment.
BHP
Senior Python Developer
2024
- I led and mentored a small team of developers, setting engineering direction, and teaching modern Python practices.
- I created and maintained a Python data analysis framework used across multiple data analysis teams to generate insights about BHP's many mining operations.
Polymathian (now Deswik)
Senior Python Developer
2021 - 2023
Main roles as an application developer:
- The creation and maintenance of webapps for mine planners, used to optimise their day-to-day operations. Honestly, I've probably written hundreds of thousands of lines of Python.
- Improving the core optimisation engine in C++.
- Take client progress meetings and conduct training with end users. Liaise with product managers about client needs and future proposals.
- I started a documentation server to document all optimisation engine constraint tables and used the CI/CD build system to force developers to write documentation for their tables. 😈 Given we had many hundreds of tables, this was extremely useful.
CSIRO
Embedded Electrical Engineer
2018 - 2021
Main roles within the Embedded Intelligence Team:
- Setup a ML pipeline + analysis of massive distributed data from embedded devices, analysis in Python, and the subsequent deployment of ML algorithms on thousands of embedded devices.
- Writing software in C with a team of engineers, designed to run on ARM M4F Cortex devices.
- Designing and manufacturing printed circuit boards in Altium Designer for various projects.
- Design and creation of an automatic test jig that was sent overseas and used to test thousands of manufactured circuit boards. The test jig informed production systems of new devices ready for sale, and logs could be analysed to detect faults in circuit boards remotely.
University of Queensland
Tutor
2014-2018
While studying for my degree, I tutored 7 different courses. I taught the "Signals, Systems, and Control" course for 3 years consecutively as the head tutor. I am most proud of creating the final project for UQ's FPGA course, which I designed, administered, and marked as the head tutor in my final year.
Education
University of Queensland
Bachelor of Electrical Engineering and a Bachelor of Physics with First Class Honors.
University of Toronto
I completed a semester at the University of Toronto, where (if I'm completely honest) I mainly travelled around Canada + US and played a lot of ice hockey.
- I've written production code in C, C++, Java, Python, JavaScript, and more.
- I've used more Python modules than I can shake a stick at, but I'm very familiar with MongoDB, SQLAlchemy, Pandas, Numpy, Flask, Django, pytest, Tensorflow, SciPy, Matplotlib, Plotly, etc.
- Obviously familiar with the holy trinity of ✨HTML, CSS, Javascript✨. Maybe we can stop listing them on job advertisements soon. I'd rather make a website with 🔥Next.js + Tailwind 🔥.
- Plenty of experience with AWS. I'd list off all the services I know and have used, but you'd pass away from boredom before I finished listing all the acronyms. 😴
- At one point, I peaked in the top ~80 pinball players in Australia. (Alas, no more, but feel free to check out my profile here.
- I love leaving Google Reviews and have amassed over 30M photo views over the years.
- I have a YouTube channel where I mainly upload renders in 3D animation/modelling software Blender.
- If you're active and use Strava, I run my own Strava data visualisation website called Active Statistics.
