# Craig Smith, PhD

> Senior Software Engineer at Apple

Location: San Diego Metropolitan Area, United States
Profile: https://flows.cv/craigsmithphd

Backend Software Engineer with a background as PhD Scientist 

Key Skills: Python, APIs, SQL, NoSQL, Bash, Linux, Git, AWS, Docker, CI/CD, Apache Spark, Airflow and ETL data pipelines, Typescript, C++.  I code in Python and SQL daily and am interested in working with Go. 

I have hands-on experience in building and maintaining operational data ingestion (ETL) pipelines, batch processing extremely large datasets, developing backend services including APIs, and leading diverse and inclusive teams to successful product launches. I'm passionate about continuous learning and professional growth, and my unique background in weather and academia brings a seasoned and unique perspective to the table.

## Work Experience
### Senior Software Engineer, Backend @ Apple
Jan 2022 – Present | San Diego, California, United States
- Backend software engineer in Software Engineering (SWE) org 
- Owned web service which processed 100 logs/second coming off device 24x7 
- Owned Jenkins batch job service processing 1000 batch jobs per day 
- Led our transition from on-prem to cloud based Kubernetes deployments 
- Built CICD pipelines to support cloud migration, automated unit testing and linting 
- Created an integration test suite for the web service.  Created a culture of test driven development (TDD) and code reviews.  Created a playbook for the team and our sibling SRE team to handle production incidents  
- Refactored web service code base to support batched API calls thus reducing cross data center networking and speeding up log processing by 20% 
- Built and migrated new backend API across 3 webservices to speed up log processing by 10% and transitioned 93% of calls to old endpoint to new endpoint.
- Split apart our monolith into 5 separate services and migrated 2 of them from Python2 to Python3
- Tech stack - Python, Flask APIs, SQL, Kubernetes, Docker, Docker, Grafana, Hubble, Splunk, Jenkins, Object Store

### Software Engineer @ Bloomberg LP
Jan 2020 – Jan 2022 | San Francisco, California, United States
Backend Software Engineer in Software Infrastructure Org.  
- Build and maintain tooling and backend services in Python that support Quantitative traders (Quants).
- Primarily writing code in Python and SQL.
- Tech stack: Python, Flask APIs, SQL, managed Kubernetes, Git, Docker, Grafana, Parquet, Arrow, Object Store

### Scientific Software Engineer and Product Lead @ Jupiter Intelligence
Jan 2019 – Jan 2020 | San Francisco Bay Area
- Developed and operationalized the world’s first cloud-native Wildfire Spread Model using Python, Docker, AWS Batch, and Lambda
- Led the successful launch of Jupiter’s operational wildfire risk product (FireScore Ops)
- Led Product Management, Science, Technical Project Management (Jira and Confluence), and Business Development on a team of up to 15 in a matrix-based organization at an early stage startup

### Founder and Principal @ Cumulus Weather Solutions
Jan 2017 – Jan 2019 | Nevada, United States
- Systems architecture, construction, and operationalization of a cloud-based weather decision support system using Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models on HPC supercomputers 
- ETL pipelines running every 5 minutes 24x365 in Python, Bash, and Postgres with data churn of ~200Gb/day
- Achieved 14 weeks of zero maintenance operations through fault tolerant reliability engineering
- Created web based dashboard visualization using Javascript, HTML, CSS
- Invention and commercialization of Intellectual Property through licensing agreement with Univ of Nevada

### Associate Research Professor @ Desert Research Institute
Jan 2012 – Jan 2019 | Reno, Nevada Area
- Created and batch processed 30 Tb downscaled climatology using NWP WRF model for wildfire risk analysis for allowing allowing prioritization of wildfire mitigation efforts and reporting to CPUC
- Training and operationalization of logistic regression model in Python using Scikit-learn to forecast wildfire risks 
- Architected, constructed, and operationalized state of the art realtime NWP model for forecasting wildfire danger and utility power shut-off events
- Developed and taught Python Programming for Atmospheric and Hydrologic Science applications, UNR Graduate School (2018, 2016, 2014).  Mentored many graduate students
- Funding: $2.1M as Primary Investigator (2013-2020) from sponsors: NSF, DOD, DOE, Google, Moore Foundation 
- Service: Amer. Met. Soc. Wildfire, Technology and Risk Committee (2019-2022), and Renewable Energy Committee (2015-2018), UNR Atmospheric Science Graduate Admission Committee (2013-2018) 
- Popular media: LA Times, Bloomberg News, Daily Beast, NPR Across the Nation, KTVN, Discovery Channel 
- Publications and Citations link: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=INKTFyYAAAAJ


## Education
### PhD in Atmospheric Sciences
Oregon State University
Jan 2005 – Jan 2010

### Master of Science in Atmospheric Sciences
Oregon State University
Jan 2001 – Jan 2003

### Bachelors of Science in Mechanical Engineering
UCLA
Jan 1995 – Jan 1999


## Contact & Social
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/craig-matthew-smith
- Website: http://www.dri.edu/craig-smith
- Website: http://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=INKTFyYAAAAJ

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