Steven Koo
Principal Software Engineer at NI (National Instruments)
Austin, Texas, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolSteven Koo is a Principal Software Engineer in Austin with 15+ years of experience (6 years in senior/lead engineering roles) designing robust CI/CD, build, and embedded Linux systems for software-defined radio and data acquisition products at National Instruments. He led a cross-functional redesign of UHD’s CI pipeline—standardizing on Azure DevOps, Docker, and hardware-integrated test workflows—to cut build/test times by more than half and reduce post-submit regressions by 80%. As code owner of meta-ettus he modernized Yocto and BSP support for NI SDRs and contributed practical cross-platform fixes to the widely used EttusResearch/uhd driver. Comfortable bridging firmware, kernel-space drivers, and cloud CI, he also mentors engineers and drove an Agile transition that boosted team throughput under remote conditions. Not obvious from titles alone: he combines hands-on kernel and build-system debugging with product-facing escalation experience, making him adept at turning elusive hardware/software integration issues into repeatable, auditable pipelines.
6 years of coding experience
12 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor of Science (BS) Electrical Engineering, Bachelor of Science (BS) Electrical Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin
Chinese
Github Skills (10)
sh10
script10
shell10
scripting10
build-automation10
cprogramming-language9
rtl-sdr9
c-language9
driver9
networking8
Programming languages (8)
Github contributions (5)
EttusResearch/uhd
Apr 2020 - Dec 2022
The USRP™ Hardware Driver Repository
Role in this project:
Backend & DevOps Engineer
Backend & DevOps EngineerContributions:2 releases, 222 commits, 5 PRs in 2 years 9 months
Contributions summary:Steven contributed to the development of a shell script for package creation within the UHD repository, demonstrating an understanding of build processes. They also addressed issues related to the MPM (Management Plane Manager) module, improving device discovery and network interface configurations. Furthermore, the user made code changes to address build issues on Windows, showcasing cross-platform development skills. These commits indicate involvement in both backend system configuration and build/release automation.
driverusrphardwaresdruhd
skooNI/openFPGALoader
Mar 2022 - Mar 2022
Universal utility for programming FPGA
Contributions:1 push, 2 branches in 1 day
placementlatticefpga-programmingfpga
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