Eli Hooten

Eli R Hooten, Ph D - Curriculum Vitae

Contact

Executive Summary

While obtaining my Ph D in Computer Science, I developed a deep knowledge of experimental design, human factors, statistical analysis, software development, and team management.

Since graduating in 2014 I have applied these skills in startups. First serving as the CTO and Co-Founder of GameWisp until 2018, and then as the CTO of Codecov from 2018 to present day.

At GameWisp I grew the software team from myself to a team of ten individuals comprised of developers, designers, data scientists, and project managers. Additionally, I led the overall technical design of GameWisp's products and shipped production-quality code on a daily basis. While at GameWisp our Annual Recurring Revenue grew from $0 to $4M, we gained hundreds of thousands active users, and shipped numerous successful products and features.

While at Codecov I scaled the technical team from 2 to 10+ engineers, support staff, and product developers. I also led the overall technical direction of the business, and helped turn Codecov into a world class, industry leading developer tool and software product.

I enjoy applying my skills as a scientist, software developer, and business leader to SaaS companies of all sizes. I'm passionate about managing technical teams, solving complex technical problems, and providing executive-level oversight to growing businesses.

Citizenship

USA

Technical Expertise

Designing, scoping, and building web-based applications; third-party API design and implementation; Containerized Deployment pipelines; Process development and implementation; managing technical teams.

Education

Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN USA

Ph D, Computer Science, May 2014

M. Sc., Computer Science, May 2013

  • Advisor: Professor Julie A. Adams
  • GPA: 3.91/4.0

M. Sc., Electrical Engineering, December 2010

Murray State University, Murray, KY USA

B. Sc., Engineering Physics, May 2009

  • Summa Cum Laude with Honors Diploma
  • Honors Thesis: Development of a Reinforcement Learning Agent to Play Ms. Pac Man
  • Minor in Mathematics and Statistics
  • GPA: 3.87/4.0

Academic and Professional Experience

Chief Technology Officer 2018 to Present

Codecov

  • Helped scale our team from 3 to 15+ employees and contractors.
  • Worked alongside our Vice President of Engineering to shape Codecov's engineering processes and best practices.
  • Directly led and the solutions engineering, technical support, and product teams.
  • Served as the technical point of contact for stakeholders from many of the world's largest companies.
  • Worked directly with Codecov's CEO to set product roadmap and long-term technical direction.
Chief Technology Officer, Co-Founder 2012 to 2018

GameWisp, Inc.

  • Grew and managed a diverse team from 1 to 10 employees and contractors.
  • Developed production quality software responsible for over $4M in Annual Recurring Revenue.
  • Designed performant and cost-effective video upload, encoding, and delivery systems utilized by thousands of active users.
  • Designed, developed, and maintained production quality REST and WebSocket APIs used by hundreds of third-party developers.
  • Routinely developed features and products and shipped production-quality code.
  • Successfully assisted GameWisp's CEO with multiple rounds of venture capital fund-raising
  • Performed wireframing, A/B testing, data analysis, and user interviews for GameWisp products.
Research Assistant 2009 to 2014

Department of Electrical Engineer and Computer Science; Vanderbilt University

  • Implemented internal developmened processes for all laboratory software projects using C++/Qt, Ruby on Rails, R, and Git.
  • Independently designed, sourced, assembled, and flight tested unmanned aerial vehicles and balloons for archaeological field use in the Andes of South America.
  • Supported archaeological survey teams in remote areas of Peru by providing on-site hardware and software development.
  • Provided a production quality implementation of the General Visualization Abstraction Algorithm in C++

Refereed Publications

Of Drones and Deep Maps: Archaeological Placemaking with Aerial Robots, Photogrammetry, and GIS.
Wernke, Steven A., Julie Adams, A., Eli Hooten, Gabriela Oré, Carla Hernández and Aurelio Rodríguez
Paper presented at the Invited talk for THATCamp (The Humanities and Technology) conference, 2014.
Cancerous tweets: socially sharing sensitive health information
MD Anderson, JA Adams, ER Hooten
Systems, Man and Cybernetics (SMC), 2014 IEEE International Conference on
Tablet Interaction Accuracy and Precision: Seated vs. Walking
ST Hayes, ER Hooten, JA Adams
Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 2014
*Winner Best Student Paper
Capturing Complexity: Toward an Integrated Low-Altitude Photogrammetry and Mobile Geographic Information System Archaeological Registry System
Steven A Wernke, Julie A Adams, Eli R Hooten
Advances in Archaeological Practice
Communicative modalities for mobile device interaction
Eli R Hooten, Sean T Hayes, Julie A Adams
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 2013
Comparing input error for mouse and touch input
Eli R Hooten, Julie A Adams
Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC), 2011 IEEE International Conference on
Visually-Cued Touch Gestures for Accurate Mobile Interaction
Sean T Hayes, Eli R Hooten, Julie A Adams
Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 2011
A Comparison of Communicative Modes for Map-Based Tasking
Eli R Hooten, Sean T Hayes, Julie A Adams
Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 2011
Multi-touch interaction for tasking robots
Sean Timothy Hayes, Eli R Hooten, Julie A Adams
Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), 2010 5th ACM/IEEE International Conference on

Presentations

Beyond the Basemap: Site and Landscape Survey through Low Altitude Aerial Photogrammetry and Mobile GIS in the Andes
Steven A. Wernke (Vanderbilt University), Julie A. Adams (Vanderbilt University), Eli Hooten (Vanderbilt University), Gabriela Oré (Vanderbilt University), Carla Hernández (Vanderbilt University), Aurelio Rodríguez (Independent Scholar), and Giancarlo Marcone (Proyecto Qhapaq Ñan, Ministry of Culture of Peru)
MOBILIZING THE PAST FOR A DIGITAL FUTURE: The Potential of Digital Archaeology, 2015.

Committee Appointments

GameWisp, Inc., Board Member - 2016 to present

20th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, 2011 - Associate Editor

8th IEEE International Workshop on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics, 2010 - Program Committee Member

Awards and Honors

Human Factors and Ergonomics Society
  • Winner, Best Student Paper, 2014
American Society for Engineering Education
  • National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship, 2009 - 2012
National Science Foundation
  • Graduate Research Fellowship Honorable Mention, 2010.
  • Graduate Research Fellowship Honorable Mention, 2009.
Murray State University
  • Alumni Association Top 22 under 40, 2019.
  • Presidential Fellowship, 2004 - 2009
  • Dean's List for Academic Excellence, 2004 - 2008
  • Undergraduate Research and Scholarly Activity Grant, 2009
  • Honors Program Outstanding Senior Graduate, 2009
  • Engineering and Physics Oustanding Senior Graduate, 2009
  • Starick Scholarship Recipient, 2008
  • Student Organization President of the Year Nominee, 2008
  • Honor Society Inductions: Society of Automotive Engineers, Sigma Pi Sigma Physics Honors Society, Pi Mu Epsilon Mathematics Honors Society, Omicron Delta Kappa Honors Society (all 2007)

Service

Honors Program

Murray State University, Murray, KY USA

President of Student Council 2007 - 2008

  • Successfully proposed the addition of an Honors Math course to the Honors Program curriculum.
  • Oversaw council activities across all philanthropy, outreach, academic, social and service activities.
  • Acted as a liaison between the Honors Program and all other campus organizations.

Philanthropy Committee Chair 2007 - 2009

  • Oversaw the planning and execution of all philanthropic activities.
  • Raised thousands of dollars for the Waterfield Library annually.
  • Personally participated in all program fund raising events.
Department of Engineering and Physics

Murray State University, Murray, KY USA

Moonbuggy Team Co-Captain 2007 - 2009

  • Participated in NASAs annual Great Moonbuggy Race.
  • Worked with a team to design a race vehicle from scratch.
  • Winner of 2007 Unique Design Award
  • 2008 Second Place Finish
  • 2009 Fouth Place Finish

Baja SAE Team Co-Captain 2007 - 2008

  • Designed with a student team MSUs inagural Baja car: a single seat, motorized, off-road vehicle.
  • Personally designed and fabricated the vehicle's suspension system.
  • Responsible for acquiring and managing corporate sponsorships.

Technical Skills

The following is a subset of skills I've acquired over the last 15 years or so. It is by no means exhaustive.

Skill Last Used Time Used (yrs) Experience Level
PHP / Laravel present 4 Advanced
Vue / JavaScript present 3 Intermediate
Docker / Kubernetes present 4 Intermediate
AWS / GCP present 4 Intermediate
SVN / Git present 8 Intermediate
NodeJS 2016 2 Intermediate
C++ / Qt 2014 10 Advanced

References

References available upon request