Sascha Brawer’s Resume

Sascha Brawer
Länggassstrasse 27, 3012 Bern
sascha@brawer.ch

* May 26, 1972

Experience

Since 10/2021 Bern, Switzerland – Independent

Built Wikidata QRank, ranking knowledge graph entities by analyzing page views on Wikipedia, Wikitravel and other Wikimedia sites.

Built OSMViews, ranking geographic locations based on OpenStreetMap tile logs.

10/2019 – 9/2021 Niantic Labs, Zürich, Switzerland – Director of Engineering
Designed a pipeline to reconstruct 3D models of the physical world on behalf of Augmented Reality features in “Pokémon Go” and other Niantic games.

Set up a prototype to use Niantic’s Augmented Reality technology for non-gaming applications. Worked with potential customers in retail and transportation to clarify product needs. Drove prototype to demo stage.

9/2018 – 9/2019 Rapperswil, Switzerland – Human Being
Dabbled in oil painting. Read a lot. Enjoyed life.

5/2004 – 8/2018 Google, Zürich, Switzerland – Senior Staff Software Engineer (L7, latest position)
Designed, implemented significant parts, and drove to launch: Indoor Maps; Google Chart API; Google Webmaster Tools/Sitemaps; Public Transit on Google Maps; Layers infrastructure for Google Maps; Google Translation Dictionaries; “onebox” web search features for European markets; Romansh web search; algorithmic transliteration of Google Maps to Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Russian.

Helped starting up Google’s European Engineering headquarters. Interviewed candidates for positions in Software Engineering, Operations, Engineering Leadership, and Product Management. Trained new hires about Google’s systems infrastructure. Guided project teams through Google’s launch process, reviewing their systems design and making sure their additions fit into the existing production infrastructure.

“Engineering Ambassador” in Tokyo, connecting Google Japan to other sites while leading a Japanese team.

Took a 5-month break in 2012.

4/2003 – 4/2004 Dandelis, Berne, Switzerland – Founder
Founded a consulting and software development business.
Member of the Swiss delegation to the ISO technical committee for Geographic Information. Wrote the draft standard document for ISO 19137, and drove it through the standardization process in minimal time.
Contributed several frameworks to the GNU implementation of the Java libraries.

4/2002 – 3/2003 Adasys, Zürich, Switzerland – Software Engineer
Co-authored a textbook on modeling spatial data.

Member of the Swiss delegation to the ISO technical committee for Geographic Information.

Implemented threading, exception handling and GUI modules for a proprietary cross-platform development platform.

3/2000 – 1/2002 Xerox PARC, Palo Alto CA, USA – Member of Research Staff
Designed a modular, distributed architecture to integrate heterogenous engines for analyzing semi-structured document collections.
Implemented a prototype client/server application for assisting “knowledge workers.”
Developed the statistical engine for an interactive classification program.

4/1998 – 2/2000 Adasys, Zürich, Switzerland – Software Engineer
Contributed to the design of an object-oriented modeling language for Geographic Information Systems. Developed a Java tool and class library for checking the semantic consistency of models.

Designed and implemented a Modula-2 mapping for CORBA IDL.

Consulted clients on data modeling issues, color management and client/server architectures.

10/1997 – 7/1999 University of Zürich, Department of Informatics, Switzerland – External Lecturer
Taught a lecture (Lehrauftrag) on Programming Techniques in Computational Linguistics, 2h/week.

3/1997 – 9/1997 Apple Computer, Advanced Technology Group, Cupertino CA, USA – Research Intern
Built an optimizing compiler that transformed linguistic grammars for information extraction into PowerPC machine code.

4/1994 – 10/1996 Saarland University, Computational Linguistics – Research Assistant (HiWi)
Developed a natural language parsing framework in C++.

Implemented a component for visualizing the semantic construction process in the “Verbmobil” machine translation system (in Prolog, under X11).

7/1993 – 10/1993 ETH Zürich, Computer Engineering and Networks Lab, Speech Processing Group, Zürich, Switzerland. – Intern
Improved the phrase structure grammar of a German text-to-speech synthesis system.
Implemented Earley’s O(n³) chart parsing algorithm in Modula-2.

Education

1/1998 Diploma (~Master) in Computational Linguistics, Minor: Computer Science
Passed with distinction. Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany.

Programming Skills

Programming Languages — Extensive experience in C++, C, Java, and Python. Completed small projects in Perl, Prolog, Lisp, Object Pascal, Assembler (PowerPC, 680x0, 6301), Objective C, Forth, AppleScript, TCL, PostScript, and Basic.

Operating Systems — System-level programming for MacOS and GNU/Linux. Basic knowledge of Tru64 UNIX, HP-UX, Solaris, and Win32 (ported libraries). Minimal exposure to VMS and CP/M.

Libraries — Java J2SE (wrote several packages for GNU Classpath); Java MIDP; GTK+; deeply familiar with MacOS InterfaceLib/CarbonLib; many GNU and X libraries; basic familiarity with Windows API.

Languages

Swiss German native speaker; fluent in English; working knowledge of Italian and French; entry-level knowledge of Romansh.

Publications, Patents, Talks

See https://www.brawer.ch/articles/.

Since 10/2021	Bern, Switzerland – Independent Built Wikidata QRank, ranking knowledge graph entities by analyzing page views on Wikipedia, Wikitravel and other Wikimedia sites. Built OSMViews, ranking geographic locations based on OpenStreetMap tile logs.
10/2019 – 9/2021	Niantic Labs, Zürich, Switzerland – Director of Engineering Designed a pipeline to reconstruct 3D models of the physical world on behalf of Augmented Reality features in “Pokémon Go” and other Niantic games. Set up a prototype to use Niantic’s Augmented Reality technology for non-gaming applications. Worked with potential customers in retail and transportation to clarify product needs. Drove prototype to demo stage.
9/2018 – 9/2019	Rapperswil, Switzerland – Human Being Dabbled in oil painting. Read a lot. Enjoyed life.
5/2004 – 8/2018	Google, Zürich, Switzerland – Senior Staff Software Engineer (L7, latest position) Designed, implemented significant parts, and drove to launch: Indoor Maps; Google Chart API; Google Webmaster Tools/Sitemaps; Public Transit on Google Maps; Layers infrastructure for Google Maps; Google Translation Dictionaries; “onebox” web search features for European markets; Romansh web search; algorithmic transliteration of Google Maps to Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Russian. Helped starting up Google’s European Engineering headquarters. Interviewed candidates for positions in Software Engineering, Operations, Engineering Leadership, and Product Management. Trained new hires about Google’s systems infrastructure. Guided project teams through Google’s launch process, reviewing their systems design and making sure their additions fit into the existing production infrastructure. “Engineering Ambassador” in Tokyo, connecting Google Japan to other sites while leading a Japanese team. Took a 5-month break in 2012.
4/2003 – 4/2004	Dandelis, Berne, Switzerland – Founder Founded a consulting and software development business. Member of the Swiss delegation to the ISO technical committee for Geographic Information. Wrote the draft standard document for ISO 19137, and drove it through the standardization process in minimal time. Contributed several frameworks to the GNU implementation of the Java libraries.
4/2002 – 3/2003	Adasys, Zürich, Switzerland – Software Engineer Co-authored a textbook on modeling spatial data. Member of the Swiss delegation to the ISO technical committee for Geographic Information. Implemented threading, exception handling and GUI modules for a proprietary cross-platform development platform.
3/2000 – 1/2002	Xerox PARC, Palo Alto CA, USA – Member of Research Staff Designed a modular, distributed architecture to integrate heterogenous engines for analyzing semi-structured document collections. Implemented a prototype client/server application for assisting “knowledge workers.” Developed the statistical engine for an interactive classification program.
4/1998 – 2/2000	Adasys, Zürich, Switzerland – Software Engineer Contributed to the design of an object-oriented modeling language for Geographic Information Systems. Developed a Java tool and class library for checking the semantic consistency of models. Designed and implemented a Modula-2 mapping for CORBA IDL. Consulted clients on data modeling issues, color management and client/server architectures.
10/1997 – 7/1999	University of Zürich, Department of Informatics, Switzerland – External Lecturer Taught a lecture (Lehrauftrag) on Programming Techniques in Computational Linguistics, 2h/week.
3/1997 – 9/1997	Apple Computer, Advanced Technology Group, Cupertino CA, USA – Research Intern Built an optimizing compiler that transformed linguistic grammars for information extraction into PowerPC machine code.
4/1994 – 10/1996	Saarland University, Computational Linguistics – Research Assistant (HiWi) Developed a natural language parsing framework in C++. Implemented a component for visualizing the semantic construction process in the “Verbmobil” machine translation system (in Prolog, under X11).
7/1993 – 10/1993	ETH Zürich, Computer Engineering and Networks Lab, Speech Processing Group, Zürich, Switzerland. – Intern Improved the phrase structure grammar of a German text-to-speech synthesis system. Implemented Earley’s O(n³) chart parsing algorithm in Modula-2.