Three questions with a new staff member on our Software Engineering – Orchestration and Core Data Team!

Karim comes to us from Carnegie Mellon University, where he served as a Software Engineer in the Network Services group. In that role, he designed, implemented, deployed, and maintained numerous applications to provide support to the campus network infrastructure. He has worked on a diverse set of network computing problems with a focus on automation and self-service utilities. Karim is proficient in a multitude of application development stacks but has a special place in his heart for those that put Python in the mix.

What brought you to ESnet?

I’ve always had a profound curiosity for the intersection of mathematics, science, and technology. Starting with a strong foundation in mathematics, I learned how to better apply my problem-solving  skills by pursuing graduate work in computational biology. It was there that I discovered how next-generation computing technologies could radically transform and elevate entire scientific fields. I’ve been seeking to utilize the skills I’ve built up over my 15 years of industry experience to help build tools for scientists, to empower them, and help them achieve discoveries in a world that is becoming ever increasingly more complex. The work being done at ESnet lines up perfectly with this goal in mind.

What is the most exciting thing going on in software engineering right now?

I would say the rapid proliferation of containerization technologies and the use of cloud infrastructure for distributed computing problems, as well as advancements in machine learning libraries and toolkits that let scientists more easily simplify the manipulation and analysis of large datasets. Many of these concepts were in their infancy or early stages only a decade ago, and now they’re everywhere and I’m happy to see how fast they’ve been adopted.

What book would you recommend?

Time Travel in Einstein’s Universe by J. Richard Gott. An accessible read for laymen like me, about how one would — given some ridiculous assumptions — go about creating various time machines.