Nick Ball
Freelance Data Scientist
San Francisco, California, United States
Summary
🎓
Top SchoolNick Ball is a senior data scientist with two decades of data science experience and a deep focus over the last 10 years on building data science platforms and MLOps-enabled ML delivery. With a PhD in Astronomy and early postdoctoral work applying machine learning to 100M+ object datasets, he helped pioneer large-scale scientific data mining and cloud-like infrastructure for astronomy (CANFAR). He has led product and technical strategy across startups and enterprise teams—shaping roadmaps, delivering PoCs for fraud detection, and driving end-to-end platform architecture at Dotscience, Paperspace (now DigitalOcean) and Oracle. Comfortable as a full-stack/generalist practitioner, he combines research pedigree with hands-on system design and clear external communication through blogs, demos and talks. An organized, even‑tempered problem-solver, he uniquely bridges academic big-data research and practical commercial MLOps solutions.
5 years of coding experience
16 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor of Arts (BA) Natural Sciences, Bachelor of Arts (BA) Natural Sciences at University of CambridgeDoctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) Astronomy, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) Astronomy at University of Sussex
Github Skills (22)
python10
gradient10
cli10
recommender7
machine-learning6
recommender-system5
docker4
huggingface4
tensorflow4
deep-learning3
bert3
pytorch3
text-generation3
nlg3
nlp2
Programming languages (4)
Github contributions (5)
Paperspace/ml-in-a-box
Sep 2021 - Oct 2021
Machine learning tool-set for Paperspace VMs
Contributions:28 commits, 3 comments, 2 issues in 18 days
machine-learning
gradient-ai/Deep-Learning-Recommender-TF
Jun 2021 - Nov 2021
Deep learning recommender end-to-end project showing Gradient Notebooks and Workflows
Contributions:29 commits, 22 pushes in 5 months
deep-learningrecommender
Find and Hire Top DevelopersWe’ve analyzed the programming source code of over 60 million software developers on GitHub and scored them by 50,000 skills. Sign-up on Prog,AI to search for software developers.