Folkert Huizinga
Co-Owner at Brain Builders
Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolFolkert Huizinga is a practical AI researcher-developer and co-owner with 17 years of experience specializing in computer vision, reinforcement and supervised learning, and high-performance computing across CPU intrinsics and GPGPU tuning. He combines academic rigor from a Master’s in Artificial Intelligence with hands-on production work—developing LOFAR radio telescope software at the University of Amsterdam while co-running AI startups that deliver real-world embedded and experimental systems. Folkert is a seasoned MLOps/DevOps engineer in prominent open-source projects like LeelaChessZero, where he improved build systems, CUDA/TensorFlow integrations and network compression tooling to squeeze performance from diverse hardware. Known for squeezing every drop of performance from hardware, he brings a rare blend of low-level optimization skill and ML modeling experience to complex, resource-constrained problems.
17 years of coding experience
6 years of employment as a software developer
Master, Artificial Intelligence, Master, Artificial Intelligence at University of Amsterdam
Github Skills (26)
c-language10
mson10
python10
cicd10
chess10
tensorflow10
build-automation10
mesonbuild10
cprogramming-language10
protobuffer10
protobuf10
dockers9
data-pipelines9
machine-learning9
docker9
Programming languages (5)
Github contributions (5)
glinscott/leela-chess
Jan 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 & MLOps Engineer
Back-end & MLOps EngineerContributions:1 release, 162 commits, 55 PRs in 4 months
Contributions summary:Folkert primarily contributed to the Leela Chess project by implementing and maintaining the core training pipeline. This involved adding a conversion tool to speed up training, optimizing data processing with random sampling and modifications to the ChunkParser class. They also worked on improving the Tensorflow integration, including learning rate adjustments, model saving, and integration with a web-based training and evaluation interface. Additionally, they worked on a fix for CUDA related issues.
chess-enginegcpzerouci
LeelaChessZero/lc0
May 2018 - Aug 2018
Open source neural network chess engine with GPU acceleration and broad hardware support.
Role in this project:DevOps Engineer & ML Engineer
DevOps Engineer & ML EngineerContributions:10 commits, 12 PRs, 50 pushes in 3 months
Contributions summary:Folkert's primary contributions involve improving the build process and integrating machine learning aspects of the project. This includes optimizing compiler flags, installing project dependencies, and setting up the build environment, focusing on the build system (meson). Furthermore, they implemented modifications for gzipped protobuf compressed neural networks, including adding protobuf submodules, integrating clang-format, and updating the versioning process. The user also addressed the build process within CircleCI.
pythonrewrittenucichess-enginebackends
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