# Blake Vente

> Senior Software Development Engineer, Audible

Location: New York City Metropolitan Area, United States
Profile: https://flows.cv/blakevente

Ephemeral Vagrant, available wherever you listen to podcasts. https://empath.substack.com/p/ephemeral-vagrant-podcast

I am a machine learning researcher, chiefly motivated by Open Research and Explainable Models. In particular, my research interests include Natural Language Processing techniques. If I succeed in my life's work, all of the world's knowledge will be at our fingertips.

## Work Experience
### Senior Software Development Engineer @ Amazon
Jan 2021 – Present | Newark, New Jersey, United States
Worked on Audible.com Website, (Java JSP), Audible Backend Services (Java), Amazon.com Customer Service Agent application (React, Typescript) Amazon.com Customer Service Data Pipelines (AWS, SNS, SQS, Lambda, SQL)

### Undergraduate Research Assistant @ Columbia University in the City of New York
Jan 2020 – Jan 2021 | New York City Metropolitan Area
· Apply NLP techniques to predict judge scores on intercollegiate debate competitions with acoustic-prosodic and lexical features
· Implement high-integrity, reproducible machine learning experiments with comprehensive documentation and logging using Python-Sacred with Scikit-Learn
· Plot and interpret accuracy, F1, and R-squared score landscapes for models to inform hyperparameter tuning
· Extract, preprocess, and integrate acoustic features using Python-Parselmouth, a Praat frontend.

### Undergraduate Teaching Assistant @ Hunter College
Jan 2019 – Jan 2021 | Greater New York City Area
DS&A UTA (Software Analysis and Design III) Spring 2020 
· Serve students by tutoring C++, emphasizing self-confidence, planning, and documentation
· Automated grading two C++ projects at 20 unit tests each for 200 students using C++ testing framework Catch2; Auto-generate score reports sent to maximize student feedback.
Senior UTA (Intro to CS, Python) Fall 2020
· Guest lecture 400 students for 10 minutes about indefinite loops in Python
· Automated student whiteboard quiz grading as a Senior Team member, saving 2 hours of
scanning and grading daily across 450 enrolled students
· Promotes communication between the students and the Hunter College administration
· Administers exams, resolves Gradescope issues, and performs various administrative functions

### Quantitative Methods Workshop Student @ Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Jan 2021 – Jan 2021 | Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
· One of 6 Hunter Students selected for a week-long, intensive lecture series supported by the MIT Department of Biology; Brain and Cognitive Science department; and the NSF-funded Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines.
· Understood theory and practice of underlying quantitative methods for quintessential works in cognitive neuroscience 
· applied visualizations of calcium imaging in the brain and General Linear Models for fMRI analysis
· Delivered MATLAB assistance for collaborative implementations of aforementioned methods to non-technical peers

### Software Engineer Intern @ FactSet
Jan 2020 – Jan 2020
· Increase response speed to customers with an interactive observability dashboard by using a Node API and Vue frontend
· Elicited requirements through direct stakeholder meetings and passed performance and interoperability benchmarks
· Adhered to rigorous code standards with unit tests, strong typing with Typescript, and weekly code reviews
· Adapted to time constraints, fulfilling 12-week internship milestones despite abridged 8 week internship period

### Mathematics Tutor @ Platinum Edge Tutoring
Jan 2018 – Jan 2020 | Brookyn, New York
· Tutors SAT, SHSAT, AP Computer Science, Python 3, p5.js, Arduino (Seasonal)
· Has led 3 different classrooms of 20 students, deconstructing complex questions into modular semantic components
· Produces instructional YouTube videos allowing students to remotely access educational content
· Develops appscript and python scripts to automate scoring exams and generating score reports
· Directed summer intern cohort to create a SHSAT math curriculum and test prep book using LaTeX, for stand-alone distribution and for use in future tutoring sessions

### Software Engineer Intern @ Noodle Partners
Jan 2019 – Jan 2019 | Greater New York City Area
· Proposed and implemented site revisions for noodlepartners.com to improve performance, click-through rate,
and mobile compatibility
· Spearheaded Humans of Noodle in intern capstone project to promote public understanding of company culture
· Executed database operations using SQL and wrote Sequelize back-end scripts from scratch for data migration
· Adhered to Agile development philosophy through Zoom, JIRA, Confluence, and GitHub

### High School Acheivement Program - SAT Tutor @ Khan's Tutorial
Jan 2017 – Jan 2017 | Richmond Hill, Queens, New York
· Tutored SAT test prep in a classroom of 15 students, maintaining an engaging and productive class atmosphere 
· Held Parent-Teacher conferences with students’ families to promote parental engagement in the tutoring process 
· Restructured and automated a spreadsheet of scoring and attendance information · High School Achievement Program Instructor of the Month, August 2017

### High School Acheivement Program - Regents Tutor @ Khan's Tutorial
Jan 2017 – Jan 2017 | Richmond Hill, Queens, New York
· The HSAP Department at Khan's Tutorial both provides a platform for  short term academic achievement,  and establishes the foundations for long term success in college and beyond.
· Tutored Regents subjects including Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, and Biology in a group setting students, scores, and attendance

### Creative Services Intern @ Rebecca School
Jan 2017 – Jan 2017 | New York, New York
· Edited videos using Adobe Premiere Pro CC for internal use in the company 
· Created, edited, and published digital images and print documents for distribution on the company website and on fliers using the Adobe Creative Suite 
· Revised the text of the company website for clarity and consistency using knowledge of Wordpress, HTML, and knowledge of journalistic writing conventions

### President and Lead Photographer @ Humans of Brooklyn Latin
Jan 2014 – Jan 2017 | Greater New York City Area
· Founded Humans of Brooklyn Latin on Facebook to promote a deeper understanding of the experiences of
students at Brooklyn Latin
· Captured 116 portraits of students, amassing more than 620 likes on Facebook
· Digital post production using the Open Source tools Darktable, Gimp, and Krita

### Ladders For Leaders Trainee @ PENCIL, Inc.
Jan 2017 – Jan 2017 | Brooklyn, New York

### Living Latin in Rome Fellow @ The Paideia Institute for Humanistic Study
Jan 2016 – Jan 2016 | Rome Area, Italy
· Awarded Rome Prize merit scholarship to tour and study in Rome, Italy for 16 days of immersion in Roman
culture, arts, and architecture
· Read and translated Latin passages from Ancient Roman authors such as Ovid, Cicero, and Virgil
· Spoke and performed in Latin for other members of Living Latin in Rome at a venue for the Paideia Institute


## Education
### Master's degree in Computer Science
Columbia University
Jan 2021 – Jan 2026

### Bachelor of Arts - BA in Computer Science
Macaulay Honors College at The City University of New York
Jan 2017 – Jan 2021

### International Baccalaureate in Advanced Regents Diploma, Liberal Arts and Sciences/Liberal Studies
Brooklyn Latin
Jan 2013 – Jan 2017


## Contact & Social
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/rvente
- Website: https://rvente.com
- Website: https://empath.substack.com/
- Website: https://read.cv/vente

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Source: https://flows.cv/blakevente
JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/blakevente/resume.json
Last updated: 2026-03-22