Hi, I’m Zack.

About Me

My name is Zack Robinson. I write software (and occasionally words) to help people accomplish their goals, avoid tedium, and learn something new about the world we inhabit and the systems we use. I have a particular interest in human-computer interaction, embedded systems, efficient infrastructure, and cross-disciplinary integration.

I’m studying for a BA in Computer Science, with minors in Engineering and English Literature, at Swarthmore College. I’m also the current president of the Swarthmore College Computer Society, a 32-year-old chartered student organization with about 65 members. I’m working part-time as a software engineer intern at Arcesium.

I tend not to focus on specific languages, and can quickly learn new technologies and frameworks as needed. With that said, though, I’ve done non-trivial work in Python, Typescript, HTML/CSS/JS, Java, Kotlin, and OCaml, plus some exposure to Rust, C/C++, and Verilog. I’m familiar with deploying and running code in a variety of environments: from embedded systems, to on-premises physical servers, to managed Kubernetes clusters, to purely serverless cloud-based architectures.

I grew up in the city of Portland, Oregon. I used to be a student on FIRST® Robotics Competition Team 1540, and I’m still involved in the program through volunteering as a Control System Advisor and contributions to competition-specific libraries.

Projects and Past Work

FA-COMPUTER = Current active involvement

• Arcesium: I spent Summer 2023 as a Software Engineer Intern at Arcesium. During my internship, I wrote a new web application for the Corporate Technology team that let over 1,000 developers self-manage their virtual workstations and decreased workstation-related developer queries by around 50%. I also wrote a cost analysis tool to break down over $1 million in annual AWS spending into an easy-to-understand report. I'm currently working part-time to develop a new component for filtering and controlling mail egress from Arcesium's Kubernetes cluster.  FA-COMPUTER
• SAUCE: I’m the primary developer and maintainer of the SCCS Account and User Control Engine (or SAUCE), a new homepage, account management system, and CMS for the Swarthmore College Computer Society. FA-COMPUTER
• Crumb Cafe (WIP): I’m the project lead for a new point-of-sale and ordering system developed by SCCS for Swarthmore’s student-run late-night establishment.  FA-COMPUTER
• Polaris: I spent Summer 2022 as a System Administrator Intern at Polaris, one of the world’s leading powersports manufacturers. Using Ansible Playbooks and some PowerShell, I helped migrate several hundred legacy Windows virtual machines from an on-premises system to a cloud-based hosting provider. I also helped my intern team win the companywide “Innovation Challenge” by developing and presenting two new features for Polaris’s connected vehicle offerings.
• Streem: I spent Summer 2020 helping to make the world’s expertise more accessible as a Software Engineer Intern at Streem. I developed several Android utilities to generate test files and proofs-of-concept for a new video backend system, and worked on a new system for logging and metrics ingestion from WebRTC streams using Amazon Kinesis pipelines.
• FRC Team 1540: In high school, I was a very involved student on FIRST® Robotics Competition Team 1540, the Flaming Chickens. We built 150-pound industrial robots from the ground up in about six weeks. I wrote significant chunks of the control code for three competition robots, two of which won software awards.