Simon Staal

I'm a

About

Hi! I'm Simon, a 22-year-old computer engineering graduate, having just completed my 4th year at Imperial College London for an MEng in Electronic and Information Engineering. Within my degree, I specialised in software engineering, with a focus on low-level C++ for highly performant or embedded applications, but with interests spanning across fields like machine learning and network security. My passion for helping others and sharing my love for STEM has led to over 5 years of experience in tutoring mathematics and programming at both grade school and university level. I also worked as the departmental representative for my degree programme, in which I implemented numerous improvements to the course, and was responsible for raising student issues to the faculty and discussing solutions.

I consider myself a very international person, having lived in 10 different countries across 4 continents. This has given me a broad cultural appreciation, as well as a passion for exploration and the outdoors. I summited Mount Kinabalu at 14 and Kilimanjaro at 18, which further developed my key character strengths of perseverance and determination. Currently, my main hobbies include bouldering, going to the gym and spending time with my friends and loved ones.

Software Engineer

Having just completed my studies at the end of June 2023, I'll be spending the next 4 months travelling in Iceland with my family, as well as South-East Asia with my girlfriend before returning to work at Optiver Amsterdam in November 2023.

  • Birthday: 27 April 2001
  • Website: You're here 😄
  • Phone: +44 7464 101 976
  • City: London, UK
  • Age: 22
  • Degree: Masters in Computer Engineering
  • Email: simonstaal10@gmail.com
  • Status: Enjoying a well-deserved break!

I am a fast learner, effective communicator and strive to always write code with a focus on readability and maintainability. My affinity for technology leads me to have a thirst for learning; I'm always looking to broaden or deepen my technical knowledge, or find better ways of doing things.

Skills

C++ Advanced
Functional Programming (F#) Advanced
Profiling and Optimisation Intermediate
Machine Learning (PyTorch, scikit-learn) Intermediate
Python Advanced
Web Back-End (Node.js) Proficient
Networks Intermediate
Security Intermediate

Resume

Education

Master of Engineering in Electronic and Information Engineering

September 2019 - July 2023

Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom

  • Achieved First Class Honours in 1st, 2nd and 3rd year, averaging 84% overall. 4th year results currently pending.
  • Obtained the 2021 Head of Department Prize for top academic performance and on the 2021 and 2022 Dean's Lists for academic excellence.
  • Modules of interest:
    • Programming for Engineers (94%)
    • Algorithms and Complexity (100%)
    • Introduction to Machine Learning (91%)
    • Advanced Computer Architecture (86%)

International Baccalaureate

August 2014 - November 2018

St. Peter's College, Adelaide, Australia

  • Placed in the top 10 graduates of my year with a 41/45 score.
  • Academic Awards:
    • Australian Institute of Physics SA Bragg Certificate (2019)
    • Charles Gillham Memorial Prize for Physics (2018)
    • Australian Mathematics Competition Senior Division Distinction (2018)
    • Da Costa Scholarship for Best Academic Performance (2017)
    • SA/NT Public Speaking Rostrum Voice of Youth Semi-Finalist (2017)

Volunteering

Department Representative

October 2021 - July 2023

Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom

  • Represented my cohort as the 3rd Year Wellbeing Representative, as well as the entire course as the Departmental Academic Representative.
  • Gathered data on student issues through surveys and one-on-one discussions and co-ordinated with other representatives to raise these problems to the department.
  • Overhauled the module feedback system for 3rd and 4th Year modules to provide future students better resources to select modules, and future representatives a more maintainable system.
  • Awarded CGCU half colours in 2022 and Union colours in 2023 in recognition of my contributions to student welfare.

Mentoring

September 2020 - Present

Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom

  • Collaborated with Imperial's Electrical Engineering Society to provide advice to 1st Year students.
  • This developed into one-on-one mentoring regarding academics, internship applications, and maintaining a healthy work-life balance.

Professional Experience

Software Engineer (Industrial Placement)

April 2022 - September 2022

Optiver, Amsterdam, NL

  • Scaled out Optibook, a simulated exchange used for competitions and recruitment, to run events across multiple AWS servers, allowing larger events to be supported.
  • Participated in trading and technology trading courses, developing an understanding of market making in various financial instruments.
  • Involved in the re-design of Optiver's Instrument Download Pipeline, which is responsible for processing and storing the hundreds of thousands of instrument definitions that are traded. Implemented numerous changes and improvements which were successfully deployed to production.

Undergraduate Teaching Assistant

November 2020 - July 2023

Imperial College London, London, UK

  • Worked with the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering to provide learning support in the following modules:
    • Programming for Engineers (1st Year)
    • Computer Architecture (1st Year)
    • Mathematics: Principles and Engineering Applications (1st Year)
    • Compilers (2nd Year)
    • High Level Programming (3rd Year)

First Ascent International

May 2022

Bending Spoons, Milan, Italy

  • Selected as one of the top 20 computer science and engineering students in Europe to participate in a 4-day skills and team-building event.
  • Attended talks on computer vision for image enhancement, real-time monitoring and mobile application design, and participated in various coding and problem-solving challenges.

Reliability Maintenance Engineering Internship

July 2021 - September 2021

Amazon, Luton, UK

  • Joined Amazon's Robotic Programs team to work on a UK/EU-wide project to update the design of their robotics stations.
  • Collaborated with teams spanning different business sectors, developing my data gathering, analysis and presentation techniques.

Academic Tutoring

November 2018 - June 2022

Various, Remote

  • Provided teaching support part-time for students in primary, middle and high school in STEM topics.
  • Focused on Mathematics, teaching GCSE, IB and A-level curriculums.

Testimonials

Simon has done a fantastic job as a teaching assistant on my Compilers course this year. He provided excellent technical advice to the students building compilers, always looking for ways to help them to discover solutions themselves. He was also a regular source of sage advice to me when designing the content and assessment of the coursework, for which I was very grateful. I hope he will consider returning as a (senior) teaching assistant next year!

John Wickerson

Lecturer @ Imperial College London

Simon worked with us in our team at Optiver for ~5 weeks in which he improved our educational virtual exchange. He worked on adding a tournament mechanism to the exchange, paving the way for us to scale from just a few dozen participants to hundreds more. It was very impressive work, and it was great to see the speed at which he learned new concepts, and the enthuisasm he had for the project. Overall, I thought it was a great experience, and I hoped he liked it just as much!

Julian Brendl

Software Engineer @ Optiver

Simon is not only a fantastic mentor but also an amazing friend. He is a great problem solver and is always willing to help everyone. He is supportive and very knowledgeable about his work. Simon's work ethic and determination are both really inspiring. The way he treats others has inspired me to be a better person.

Mahanoor Syed

Student @ Imperial College London

Simon worked for 6 weeks on Issie, an F#/elmish/electron application. Simon's work was on improved automatic wire routing in the schematic editor, It was of high quality and chosen from 12 candidates for inclusion into the current version of Issie.

Tom Clarke

Lead Issie Developer

I really enjoyed working with Simon in many different projects. He is very talented, extremely hardworking and determined and he communicates effectively with his team. He is a great team mate, an excellent software engineer, a fantastic problem solver and a wonderful person. I am looking forward to working with him again!

Petra Ratkai

Student @ Imperial College London

Contact

Please feel free to reach out to me however you prefer about work opportunities (or anything else I might be interested in)! I'll do my best to get back to you within a few business days 😄

Location:

London, United Kingdom (soon to be Amsterdam)

Call:

+44 7464 101 976

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