Andy Olsen
Senior Design Verification Engineer
Austin, Texas, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolAndy Olsen is a Senior Design Verification Engineer in Austin with 17 years of experience building and validating complex silicon and FPGA systems across startups and large firms like Oracle and Everspin. He specializes in design verification, chip emulation and FPGA prototyping, with a deep hands-on background stretching from Compaq/HP to ARM-based server projects at Calxeda. Beyond hardware, Andy contributes to high-profile open-source AI game engines such as Leela Zero and Leela Chess, improving core search, resign logic, and performance-critical caching—an unusual blend of verification rigor and algorithmic software work. Known for translating nuanced system behavior into robust test and verification strategies, he combines electrical engineering fundamentals (BS, Oklahoma State) with practical production experience to de-risk silicon and firmware at scale.
17 years of coding experience
19 years of employment as a software developer
BS, Electrical Engineering, BS, Electrical Engineering at Oklahoma State University
Github Skills (13)
c-language10
cprogramming-language10
performance-optimization10
python10
chess-engine10
algorithms9
game-development9
neural-network9
artificial-intelligence9
uci9
caching9
gt6
golang4
Programming languages (10)
Github contributions (5)
glinscott/leela-chess
Feb 2018 - May 2018
**MOVED TO https://github.com/LeelaChessZero/leela-chess ** A chess adaption of GCP's Leela Zero
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:2 releases, 96 commits, 139 PRs in 3 months
Contributions summary:Andy primarily contributed to the `leela-chess` project by modifying and improving core chess engine functionalities. Their work included normalizing policy outputs for new randomized neural networks and enhancing the `dump_stats` feature by adding increased move statistics and fixing display issues. Further contributions involved optimizing training output, adding and integrating the `NNCache` for performance improvements, and fixing UCI command outputs, demonstrating a focus on the engine's core mechanics, performance, and user interface.
gcp
leela-zero/leela-zero
Nov 2017 - Mar 2018
Go engine with no human-provided knowledge, modeled after the AlphaGo Zero paper.
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:20 commits, 23 PRs, 555 comments in 3 months
Contributions summary:Andy primarily contributed to the core logic of the Go engine, focusing on refining the resign behavior and adding supporting tools for analysis. They implemented changes to the resign conditions within the UCTSearch algorithm, altering the criteria for game resignation based on the winrate. Additionally, the user added a Python script, resign_analysis.py, designed for analyzing data related to resignation thresholds, demonstrating a focus on analyzing and optimizing the engine's decision-making processes. Furthermore, they introduced changes in autogtp/main.cpp, src/Training.cpp, src/GTP.cpp, src/UCTNode.cpp and other files, which indicates a deep understanding of the engine's internal workings and testing/debugging.
go
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