Summary
Zhitao Gong is a research-driven software engineer with 13 years of experience bridging cutting-edge ML research and production engineering, currently a Member of Technical Staff at MakerMaker.AI after six years as a Research Developer at DeepMind. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from Auburn University and has practical experience across major tech internships at Google and Facebook, contributing to GNMT quantization and user-embedding systems. Comfortable in both research and engineering contexts, he has taught and TA’d core CS courses, reinforcing strengths in algorithms, networks, databases, and programming languages. A heavy Emacs user and active coder, he blends deep tool fluency with a pragmatic approach to shipping reliable systems. Colleagues can expect someone who moves fluidly between prototyping research ideas and deploying scalable solutions. An understated but telling detail: his background includes both academic instruction and hands-on feature deployment, giving him a rare full-stack view of ML systems from theory to production.
13 years of coding experience
7 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor of Science (BS) Computer Science, Bachelor of Science (BS) Computer Science at Nanjing University
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) Computer Science, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) Computer Science at Auburn University
Chinese, English