# Altay Guvench > Software Engineer at Weights & Biases Location: Mountain View, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/altay I studied monkeys and neurobiology at Harvard; made holograms and submarine antennas at MIT; recorded dozens of albums as an audio engineer, producer, and bass player; toured as the opener for the Indigo Girls; and am a two-time alum of Y Combinator. I began my winding path through the tech industry as a non-technical startup founder and CEO, but somewhere along the way I taught myself how to code, and turned towards more technical pursuits using Javascript and Ruby on Rails. My past consulting and advisory clients include Stanford University, The World Bank, iNaturalist.org, and a celebrity-tracking app acquired by Google in 2011. In 2010, I met the founders of Brick Wall Management, a boutique artist-management firm based in NYC. Realizing that a talent agency’s services for musicians might be of use to me as a tech consultant, I hired Brick Wall to negotiate my next freelance programming contract. Soon, friends of mine started asking how they could get an agent for their programming work, so we joined forces to found 10x Management, the first talent agency for technology. Today, 10x represents over 100 of the world's most elite freelance tech talent, with expertise ranging from web and mobile development, to data science, to branding and communications, to hardware and bioinformatics, and beyond. 10x has helped build technology for startups including FundersClub and Academia.edu, large companies including eBay and Live Nation, and educational institutions including UC Berkeley and the London School of Economics. 10x has also been featured in national media ranging from The New Yorker and The New York Times to NPR and ABC News. In 2016, after growing 10x Management into a multi-million dollar company, I left to pursue other projects. In 2018, my friend Lukas Biewald asked me to join his new startup, Weights and Biases, as the first engineering hire, to build developer tools for AI and machine learning researchers, and I've been there ever since. In October 2021, Weights and Biases was valued at over $1 billion dollars. When I'm not working, I like to travel, photograph ultraviolet fluorescence in nature, learn new instruments (recent obsessions include the cello, drums, and musical saw), hack music-responsive LEDs with Arduino and Raspberry Pi, and meditate in sensory deprivation tanks. ## Work Experience ### Software Engineer @ Weights & Biases Jan 2018 – Present | San Francisco, California, United States We're building the best-in-class suite of developer tools for AI and machine learning researchers, enabling them to track experiments, visualize data, optimize hyperparameters, collaborate with others, and advance the state of the art. Our product is an essential part of the data workflow at OpenAI, Github, Toyota Research, and many other organizations. We help them solve hard problems ranging from robotics and autonomous vehicles, to climate and biomedical research. As the first engineering hire, I focus primarily on front-end engineering, using React. In October 2021, we raised our Series C at a valuation north of $1 billion. ### Partner / Founder @ 10x Management Jan 2012 – Jan 2016 | San Francisco, CA and New York, NY 10x Management is the talent agency for the tech industry. Read our story in the New Yorker here: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/24/programmers-price Customers include: Google, Live Nation, American Express, eBay, McGraw Hill, UC Berkeley, academia.edu Featured in: BBC News, The New York Times, Bloomberg TV, Inc Magazine, Bloomberg Businessweek, The New Yorker, abc News, Fast Company, Mashable, VentureBeat, CNBC, Business Insider ### Bass Player @ The Great Unknowns Jan 1999 – Jan 2013 Recorded and co-produced my band's critically-acclaimed debut record, Presenting The Great Unknowns (2004). Signed to Daemon Records, a prominent indie label. Toured with the Indigo Girls. More at www.greatunknowns.com. ### Founder @ MightyQuiz.com Jan 2007 – Jan 2011 MightyQuiz.com was a user-generated trivia site, where you could play and write questions on your favorite topics, and meet other folks who share your interests. I built it. We received seed funding from Y Combinator, and additional investment from SK Telecom Ventures and some early Googlers. ----------------------------------------------------- While I've got your attention, let's test your knowledge... - What's the official instrument of San Francisco? - President Andrew Jackson served as president with two bullets lodged in his body. How did he receive these wounds? - Before acting, what did both Pierce Brosnan and Christopher Walken do? ----------------------------------------------------- The Answers: - The accordion. - In two separate duels. - They were circus performers! Brosnan was a fire-eater; Walken tamed lions. ### Web Developer @ LibraryThing.com Jan 2007 – Jan 2007 LibraryThing is the best cataloging and social networking site for book lovers and librarians. I worked there as a Javascript/PHP developer, building new features for both the main site and for their data-syndication product, LibraryThing for Libraries (http://www.librarything.com/forlibraries). ### Co-Founder @ AudioBeta Corp. Jan 2005 – Jan 2007 | Somerville, MA Primary founder, providing the overall vision, direction, and leadership. AudioBeta built a web application to allow musicians to keep in touch with their fans, plan tours, and share information about venues and booking contacts. We received seed funding from Y Combinator, LLC. ### Consultant @ MediaUnbound, Inc. Jan 2005 – Jan 2005 Helped develop a next-generation music personalization algorithm for Napster. ### Manager, Business Development @ Global Technology Conferences, Inc. Jan 2003 – Jan 2005 | Newton, MA Core member of a small team which produced GSPx 2004, a leading expo and conference focused on the embedded hardware/software industry. Helped grow the event from 500 attendees to 1500 attendees, in one year. Conceived of and organized 12 panel sessions, including the recruitment and engagement-handling of 60 C-level executives and prominent industry analysts. ## Education ### BA in Biology (Neuroscience) Harvard University ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/altay --- Source: https://flows.cv/altay JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/altay/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-11