Terrence Y. Chay

Tagged, San Francisco

Software Architect, 2007-current

• Responsible for all site stability, scalability, speed, and security issues. System is built on OPAL (Oracle PHP Apache Linux). When OPAL is found lacking, responsible for decision to move parts to Java layer.
• Solved site stability and scalability issues allowing for virality curve to grow site from 18 million registered users (January 2007) to well over 80 million registered users (March 2008).
• Rearchitected site performance allowing a growth from 830 million monthly page views (Feburary 2008) to over 7.2 billion monthly pageviews (May 2009) while reducing the web server count in half.
• Architecture made to securely transparently and dynamically recover from various security vulnerabilities (XSS, session fixation, cookie vulnerabilities), of which there have been many attacks on the site. Previously a database transaction that took weeks to complete had to be executed to deal with cleaning up after attacks.
• Finished database partitioning (February 2007) to allow for site scalability.
• Designed API to integrate with third parties (March 2007). Transformed it toboth an internal API and an Ajax/JSON one (February 2008) that is configurable, multiplexed, cacheable, and secure (XSRF, etc.). It is now used in every web page of the site as the DHTML library along with Yahoo User Interface (YUI) (supervised migration from various other frameworks starting in Feburary 2007).
• Built the most popular dating application on the web in order to increase site engagement (May 2008). The application generates over 87 million page views, 17 million yes clicks, and 2.2 million matches every day (January 2009).
• Built and deployed static content compiler (CSS, JS) to also be dynamically edge-cacheable (November 2008) while limiting both bytes and transaction numbers. Built and begun deployment on memcache-based dynamic cache for API and pages (the latter edge cacheable) that is generating an average of 3% extra server capacity a day (March 2009).
• Help transition development from a waterfall release system (6 releases in 2006), to an agile one (27 releases in 2007), to a web-agile one (daily releases). Engineering codebase, team structure, work environment, and development process to reduce engineering churn from 100% a year when joining the company to <10%, while engineering team size has more than doubled in size.
• This lead company to 14 months straight of profitability in the middle of economic downturn (since April 2008), top 80 website worldwide (Alexa, since November 2008, up from #320 in December 2007), #3 social network in advertising market share (HitWise, November 2008) #3 largest overall socal network in the United States (Nielsen NetRatings, December 2008), #3 and fastest growing social network in the United States in total daily users behind MySpace and Facebook, (comScore Media Metrix, February 2009), and #3 and fastest growing social network in the United States in time spent on site per user behind MySpace and Bebo (comScore Media Metrix, February 2009).

Plaxo, Mountain View

Web Applications Engineer, 2004-2006
Scientist, 2006-2007

• Created Plaxo eCards website as a revenue product in the fall of 2006. This sent over one million eCards and generated a quarter of million dollars in sales in the first month of operation and helped close Plaxo’s second and final round of funding (before being sold to Comcast in 2008 for $175M). This is an Ajax site written in PHP that seamlessly integrates into a heterogeneous non-PHP back end.
• Implemented Plaxo web client, including architecture of web-based Calendar, Tasks and Notes (Ajax, Remote Scripting) and introduced Ajax to Plaxo (2004). Originally attached to product design, helped create web engineering from one person (me) to seven people (2007).
• Implementing next corporate website including g11n support and content management.
• Designed and implemented survey and reporting engine (2005).

MyCasa Network, Palo Alto

Senior Software Engineer, 2002-2004

• Developed Server3 Platform core technology and web-based services (SOAP, WSDL, XMLRPC) for remote home control and personal security monitoring.
• Designed presentation layers (HTML control panel, WAP, VoiceXML, PocketPC, Palm) replaced outsourced third party product and consulting team.
• Security code review; Created billing system.
• Gave business presentations and wrote engineering white papers for partners and potential investors including Logitech, Telecom Italia Mobile, and Nokia.

QIXO, San Jose

Director of Engineering, 2000-2001

• Developed core technologies for the first internet travel comparison search engine (XML, REST, C++, PHP) recognized in major media outlets including the Wall Street Journal, Time, ABC News, Fodor's, and USA Today.
• Implemented wireless presentation (AvantGo, PQA, WAP, VoiceXML, XSL-T).
• Wrote a live real-time web front end to the search results using Remote Scripting (PHP, Ajax, Javascript).
• Monitoring, load balancing, and web statistics for virtual network WAN (Apache, PHP, shell, C, Summary).
• System (FreeBSD, Linux) and Database (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle) administration.
• Supervised six programmers.

ZipAsia, San Jose

Engineering Manager, 1999-2000

• Responsible for U.S. portal of Asian content provider.
• Built multi-lingual, mutli-ui extensible website (ASP, IIS, XML, XSL-T).
• Database administration (MS SQL Server).
• Managed ten person team of programmers, writers, and designers.

ConferencePresentations

Teaching1995-1997

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Engineering Physics, Teaching Awards

• Alpha Lambda Delta Award for Outstanding Teacher of Freshmen
• Scott Anderson Research Assistant Award (Spring '96, Fall '97)
• Highest-rated teacher in department (Fall '95, Spring '96)

Publications&Research

Ceperley D., N. Goldenfeld, T. Chay, G. Bauer, E. Drager. “Prediction of Macroscopic Properties of Liquid Helium from Computer Simulation.” 1999.

Krieger D., R. Simon, T. Chay, and R.J. Sclabassi. “A WAN surgical monitoring application built on PVM.” PVM Conf. Workshop. Pittsburgh, PA. 3/1996.

Chay, T. R., T. Y. Chay. “Effects of Channel Blockers on Reentrant Arrhythmias: Model Study.” IEEE Proc. Comp. Cardiology. Bethesda, MD. 10/1994. pp. 245-248.

Krieger D., R. Simon, T. Chay, and R.J. Sclabassi. “A WAN Surgical Monitoring Application.” Int. Conf. Biomagnetism. Vienna, Austria. 9/1993.

Skills

WebApplications&Languages

• Ajax,
• Apache,
• CSS,
• HTML,
• HTTP,
• Javascript,
• JSON,
• PHP4/5/6,
• REST

XML

• DOM,
• SAX,
• SimpleXML,
• Schema,
• SOAP/WSDL,
• XHTML,
• XMLRPC,
• XSL-T,
• VoiceXML

ProgrammingLanguages

• C,
• C++,
• FORTRAN77,
• Fortran90,
• Perl,
• Python
• shell scripting (Bourne Shell, C Shell)
• TCP/IP

SoftwareApplications

• CVS,
• MySQL,
• memcache
• Oracle,
• PostgreSQL,
• Subversion.
• rpm,
• SQLite.
• VMWare Fusion

systemadministration

• Linux system server setup and administration:
  • RedHat 6.2, 7.2, 8.0, 9, Fedora Core 1-4;
  • Gentoo 1.4;
  • SuSE 7.0, 7.1;
  • VA Linux 7.0
• FreeBSD and Mac OS X server administration
• Desktops:
  • Mac OS X,
  • Linux,
  • Windows 2000, XP

keywords

• Ajax/Javascript,
• architecture 4S (stability, scalability, speed, security),
• caching,
• creative,
• database,
• instruction,
• internet,
• PHP,
• problem solver,
• program manager,
• quick learner,
• web application programming,
• web ui,
• XML/JSON