Meet Drew Boyuka, a member of the Pendo Engineering team and our database optimization specialist. Drew moved to Raleigh for undergraduate work in Computer Science at NC State and also completed his PhD there in 2015.
He joined Pendo in early 2016, actually turning down another competitive offer, after meeting Erik Troan, our CTO. His research on database optimizations made him a perfect fit for Pendo, and he’s been able to speed up data queries by huge factors (over 2X improvement!) for our customers by leveraging caching techniques, graph theory, and compiler optimization strategies. With tens of millions of records being processed every hour, everyone appreciates the help!
What Would You Say that You Do Here…?
One of the key areas where Drew has contributed is the speed-up of our data-querying engine. Applying his research specialty, Drew has been able to accelerate queries against our multi-billion-record data stores by factors of 5x in some places. In addition, our back-end now re-uses previously run queries much more efficiently, resulting in even more performance improvements, and Drew has plans to scale those improvements further in the near future.
Pendo is Drew’s first professional programming experience, and he couldn’t have asked for a better introduction. Working at Pendo affords him the opportunity to tackle hard problems that are uncannily well-aligned with the research he did in school and collaborate with some great, like-minded folks on a fast-growing, customer-driven product.
More than Programming…
Drew spends his free time with friends and family. His parents and siblings are a short ride away near Charlotte, and they regularly take trips together. This summer, for instance, they flew to Vancouver and cruised up to Alaska, then caught a scenic train ride through the Yukon. You should see the pictures.
Drew also had the opportunity to intern in Beijing, China, at Microsoft Research Asia, over the summer before starting his graduate program. While abroad, he took the opportunity to sightsee, visiting the Temple of Heaven, the Forbidden City, and Yuanming Yuan — the ruins of the Old Summer Palace and gardens — and many other spots of local culture.
Of Course, There’s Always Room for a Couple More…
Pendo is growing quickly and we’re hiring across multiple departments: Sales, Customer Success, Marketing, and of course Engineering! If you’re a JavaScript junkie with Angular chops, a back-end or systems programmer who’s down with Go, a native Mobile developer (iOS or Android!), or a detailed QA process champ, apply for one of Pendo’s open positions!
And if you’d like to meet Drew and the other Engineering Team members, come check out our new office — with killer rooftop deck! — in the renovated historic warehouse district in Downtown Raleigh at the Pendo Open House on Nov, 3rd, 2016. We’d love to show you the view from Pendo HQ and exchange some friendly Nerf gun fire!