Max Layer
CTO at O'Reilly
Hamburg, Germany
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolMax Layer is a CTO, entrepreneur and engineer from Hamburg with over a decade of professional experience building profitable, bootstrapped education and productivity startups while advising and investing in AI/ML ventures. He combines deep technical chops—PhD-level math, core contributions to Keras, Hyperopt and Ray documentation, and authorship of ML books—with hands-on product work shipping language learning, meditation and teacher-assist apps. As a prolific open-source contributor and former core developer on projects like Elephas (distributed Keras on Spark) and Keras, he bridges research-grade deep learning with production engineering. Max teaches data science and engineering, consults on complex ML systems, and leads Manyfold Labs to apply AI in learning technology. Notably, he prefers to build companies he wants to run and partners selectively with founders who bring an existing audience or community.
11 years of coding experience
7 years of employment as a software developer
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Mathematics, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Mathematics at University of HamburgDiploma Mathematics and Computer Science, Diploma Mathematics and Computer Science at RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau
English, French, Swedish, German, Spanish
Github Skills (42)
json10
spark10
python10
machine-learning-models10
back-end-development10
sphinx10
testing10
technical-writing10
modeler10
machine-learning10
data-serialization10
modello10
refactor10
ml10
distributed-computing10
Programming languages (12)
Github contributions (5)
maxpumperla/betago
Apr 2016 - Dec 2020
BetaGo: AlphaGo for the masses, live on GitHub.
Role in this project:
Full-stack Developer
Full-stack DeveloperContributions:218 commits, 12 PRs, 140 pushes in 4 years 9 months
Contributions summary:Max's initial contribution was setting up the project with `setup.py` and defining package dependencies. They then developed a playground notebook for interacting with the project's core logic, involving data loading and board representation. Further, the user implemented base classes for data processing and file loading, with specific implementations for seven-plane and three-plane processors. Finally, they integrated a frontend to interact with a bot.
alphagodeep-networksneural-networkbetagogame
maxpumperla/deep_learning_and_the_game_of_go
Oct 2017 - Sep 2022
Code and other material for the book "Deep Learning and the Game of Go"
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:84 commits, 12 PRs, 65 pushes in 4 years 11 months
Contributions summary:Max primarily focused on updating code related to Chapter 3, demonstrating a deep understanding of the core logic within the "deep_learning_and_the_game_of_go" project. The commits show modifications to `goboard_slow.py`, including the implementation and refinement of board and move representations. These changes involved directly manipulating Go string objects and ensuring the correct handling of liberties and captures within the game. The user's contributions appear to be centered around the game's fundamental logic.
deep-learninggoneural-networksmachine-learningdata-science
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