Yitao Li
Software Engineer at SafeGraph
Canada
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolYitao Li is an experienced software engineer with 11 years building reliable, scalable backend infrastructure and data services across companies like SafeGraph, RStudio, Facebook, and eBay. He combines production-grade systems work—durable blob storage, real-time data pipelines, and geospatial truth datasets—with deep open-source contributions to R-based big-data tooling, notably maintaining sparklyr and adding MLflow R support for H2O and MLeap. Comfortable at the intersection of ML and distributed systems, he has shipped GPU-accelerated ML tooling (cuda.ml) and Spark extensions for time series and spatial processing. Based in Canada, he brings a practical, generalist engineering approach that surfaces in both high-throughput infra and developer-facing APIs, and his track record shows an unusual blend of backend robustness and R ecosystem advocacy.
11 years of coding experience
9 years of employment as a software developer
Master's degree, Computer Science, 3.914, Master's degree, Computer Science, 3.914 at University of Washington TacomaB.A. Computer Science & B.A. Mathematics, Computer Science, Mathematics, 3.856, B.A. Computer Science & B.A. Mathematics, Computer Science, Mathematics, 3.856 at New York UniversityWalt Whitman High School
Stackoverflow
1reputation
0reached
0answers
0questions
Github Skills (17)
apache-spark10
spark10
r10
data-manipulation10
machine-learning10
mlflow10
geospatial10
h2o10
sql9
api9
apidoc8
javas8
java8
api-design7
data-engineering7
Programming languages (10)
Github contributions (5)
sparklyr/sparklyr
Feb 2020 - Jan 2022
R interface for Apache Spark
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:10 releases, 58 reviews, 542 commits in 1 year 10 months
Contributions summary:Yitao contributed to the R interface for Apache Spark, specifically addressing issues related to data handling and user experience. Their work focused on fixing row name issues, refactoring the implementation of `do_spark`, modifying the handling of temporal data, and implementing the `sdf_expand_grid()` and `sdf_unnest_wider()` functionality. The commits suggest a focus on improving data processing and enhancing functionality within the R API.
rsparklyrmachine-learningrstatsspark
mlflow/mlflow
Sep 2020 - Oct 2021
Open source platform for the machine learning lifecycle
Role in this project:ML Engineer
ML EngineerContributions:20 reviews, 12 commits, 24 PRs in 1 year 1 month
Contributions summary:Yitao primarily contributed to the R implementation of the MLflow library, focusing on model support, particularly for H2O and MLeap models. Their work included developing functionalities for saving, loading, and predicting with these models, as well as integrating them with MLflow's R-based API. They also addressed bug fixes and implemented features related to tracking and server capabilities, ensuring compatibility and improving the user experience within the R environment of MLflow.
pythonlifecyclemlmachine-learningincremental-learning
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.