Nickolas Fotopoulos
Senior Software Developer at Nord Quantique
Portland, Oregon, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolNickolas Fotopoulos is a senior software developer and systems architect with 19 years of experience blending embedded systems, algorithms, and ASIC/sensor design, currently based in Portland, Oregon. He has led cross-disciplinary teams at Synaptics and Google and now contributes to quantum-focused engineering at Nord Quantique, translating research-grade physics into production hardware and firmware. A former LIGO postdoc with ~50 peer-reviewed gravitational-wave publications, he pairs deep academic rigor (PhD in Physics) with practical product wins, holding 10 U.S. patents in capacitive touch technology and multiple industry awards. His open-source work includes low-level firmware modernization on the oreboot coreboot fork, demonstrating a knack for systems-level troubleshooting across toolchains and OSes. Colleagues know him for shipping inventive, business-impacting solutions—evidenced by Synaptics’ Extraordinary Invention award—and for unusual miscellany like winning a neurogaming hackathon for a near-real-time smile-triggered photo pipeline.
19 years of coding experience
11 years of employment as a software developer
Master's degree Physics, Master's degree Physics at Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyDoctor of Philosophy - PhD Physics, Doctor of Philosophy - PhD Physics at University of Wisconsin-MilwaukeeBachelor of Science - BS Physics, Bachelor of Science - BS Physics at Carnegie Mellon University
Github Skills (10)
bootloader10
firmware10
embedded10
rust10
sys10
makefile10
build-system9
risc-v9
macos8
osdev8
Programming languages (8)
Github contributions (5)
oreboot/oreboot
Apr 2020 - Oct 2021
oreboot is a fork of coreboot, with C removed, written in Rust.
Role in this project:
Embedded Systems Engineer / IoT Developer
Embedded Systems Engineer / IoT DeveloperContributions:65 reviews, 16 commits, 13 PRs in 1 year 5 months
Contributions summary:Nickolas primarily contributed to the oreboot project by making changes related to build configurations and adapting to changes in the Rust toolchain. Their work involved modifying Makefiles, updating build scripts, and adjusting code to accommodate changes like the `asm!` to `llvm_asm!` macro rename. They also addressed issues related to the compilation of the device tree blob and fixed build issues on different operating systems. The user's commits demonstrate a focus on ensuring the project compiles and functions correctly.
rustcortex-acorebootbaremetalbootloader
fotonick/faster_unicode_symbol_search
Jan 2020 - Jan 2021
Contributions:3 releases, 25 commits, 9 pushes in 1 year
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