Paul Blackburn
Staff Systems Engineer at General Motors
San Francisco, California, United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolPaul Blackburn is a Staff Systems Engineer with 12+ years of cross-disciplinary experience spanning SAE L4 autonomous vehicle sensor integration, photonics-heavy biotech instruments, and laser system manufacturing. Currently on the Systems Engineering team at Cruise/GM, he develops multimodal sensor placement and coverage methodologies that cut prototyping time from weeks to hours and trained 20+ users on the toolchain. He pairs hands-on prototyping (optics, electronics, fluidics, PCB design) and CAD/simulation skills with pragmatic software tooling in Python, LabVIEW, C++, and scripting to deliver safety- and performance-driven solutions. His work sits at awkward interdisciplinary boundaries—where quantum optics, mechanical design, and software meet—and includes a patent for AV sensor cleaning activation. Comfortable moving between breadboard test rigs and production-ready process design, he thrives on turning complex experimental systems into reliable, repeatable products. Based in San Francisco, he brings deep optics and systems intuition informed by graduate research in quantum/condensed-matter physics.
12 years of coding experience
16 years of employment as a software developer
Master's Degree Physics, Master's Degree Physics at Pontificia Universidad Católica de ChileMaster's degree Physics, Master's degree Physics at The University of New MexicoBSc Physics, BSc Physics at Universidad de Chile
English, Spanish, French, Italian
Github Skills (19)
bitmap10
image10
image-processing9
png9
c-library9
cpp8
typescript7
accelerometer6
totem6
github6
electron6
git5
flamingo3
github-desktop2
garden2
Programming languages (2)
Github contributions (5)
individual61/r2-dtf
Jun 2018 - Jan 2025
Contributions:18 pushes, 1 branch in 6 years 8 months
individual61/KiCADCustomLibraries
Feb 2018 - Jun 2023
Contributions:7 pushes, 1 branch in 5 years 4 months
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