Rick Staa
Technical Director Livepeer Foundation (Co-Founder)
Haarlem, North Holland, Netherlands
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolRick Staa is a technical director and co-founder at the Livepeer Foundation with nine years of experience building decentralized video and AI infrastructure. Trained in mechanical engineering and cognitive robotics at TU Delft, he moved from robotics research and published work to leading the engineering efforts that brought the first AI video compute jobs and fees to Livepeer’s mainnet. Rick scaled an AI Special Projects team from a solo effort to a five-engineer group, while also operating as a compute provider running multi-GPU inference and transcoding nodes. A hands-on systems architect and open-source advocate, he contributes to notable projects like MoveIt and github-readme-stats, blending low-level robotics automation expertise with distributed protocol design. Based in Haarlem, he champions community-owned media infrastructure and retains a practical focus on performance, reliability, and progressive decentralization.
9 years of coding experience
4 years of employment as a software developer
Master Biomechanical Design, Mechanical Engineering, Master Biomechanical Design, Mechanical Engineering at Delft University of TechnologyCertified Sport Massage Therapist (ACE), Massage Therapy/Therapeutic Massage, Athletic taping and bracing, First aid and AED, Certified Sport Massage Therapist (ACE), Massage Therapy/Therapeutic Massage, Athletic taping and bracing, First aid and AED at ATS MassageopleidingenNASM Certified Personal Trainer, Personal training, NASM Certified Personal Trainer, Personal training at EFAA WeertVWO, NT & NG Profile, VWO, NT & NG Profile at Bonhoeffer college CastricumBachelor Human Movement Sciences, Sport/Health, Bachelor Human Movement Sciences, Sport/Health at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Dutch, English, French
Stackoverflow
490reputation
45kreached
14answers
10questions
Github Skills (31)
javascript10
moveit10
read-me10
yaml10
ros10
architecture9
c-language9
apidoc9
typescript9
typescript-types9
automation9
api9
architectures9
cprogramming-language9
automations9
Programming languages (25)
Github contributions (5)
anuraghazra/github-readme-stats
Dec 2021 - Jan 2023
:zap: Dynamically generated stats for your github readmes
Role in this project:
Full-stack Developer
Full-stack DeveloperContributions:1074 reviews, 144 commits, 763 PRs in 1 year 1 month
Contributions summary:Rick contributed to the project by implementing features and fixing bugs. They added tests for the `exclude_repo` option within the language card, and removed the `hide` argument from a `fetchTopLanguages` call in the API. The user also made improvements to the Dutch translations and added Uzbek translations to the `translations.js` file. Additionally, they updated themes and added the `exclude_repo` option to the stats card.
github-botdynamicserverlessnodejsstats
moveit/moveit
Aug 2021 - Jan 2022
:robot: The MoveIt motion planning framework
Role in this project:Software Architect & Automation Engineer
Software Architect & Automation EngineerContributions:20 reviews, 11 commits, 9 PRs in 4 months
Contributions summary:Rick focused on enhancing the MoveIt framework through architectural improvements and automation. They implemented changes to the MSA tool to integrate new planning configurations like STOMP and OMPL-CHOMP, requiring them to refactor existing code and add new templates. They also updated the system to correctly handle Gazebo compatibility and controller configuration. The contributions demonstrate expertise in software architecture and automating build processes.
roboticsmotionrobotmoveitplanning
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