# Martin Sanchez > Staff UI Engineer at Aurora - Crafting tools make vehicles drive themselves Location: Santa Clara, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/martinsanchez UI Software Engineer with a passion for great user interface and design. I usually go beyond what's expected of me, taking on design and backend tasks, and now planning and vision setting tasks. I also have experience in full-stack development, server administration, database management and API development. Through my experience at top-tech companies as well as in diplomacy, I have gained valuable interdisciplinary skills in conflict resolution, planning, self-discipline, adaptability, dealing with ambiguously designed problems, etc. I like to punch above my weight. I made and sold my first software product (an educational game) to my own high school shortly after graduating, and got my first programming job thereafter, before starting college. I coded and organized what became my home country's main website for progressive politics, and later became my country's youngest high ranking diplomat. I am an industrious, "do it yourselfer" who loves woodworking, fixing appliances, toys, cars, computers, etc. I follow the development of the latest AI trends, especially around self-driving vehicles, as well as clean tech solutions like electric cars and solar panels. Currently obsessed with helping make the autonomous vehicles dream into a reality and helping end the individual car ownership culture by providing cheap, reliable on-demand public transit options for the masses, as well as improved safety and lower transportation costs. ## Work Experience ### Staff Software Engineer @ Aurora Jan 2022 – Present | Mountain View, California, United States I lead the development of UI tools for metrics and visualizations in the Perception organization within Aurora, empowering Machine Learning engineers to fine tune their AI models. Hoping to contribute to ending the individual car ownership culture via cheap, safe, practical and on-demand public transportation via autonomous vehicles solutions. ### Software Engineer @ Facebook Jan 2018 – Jan 2022 | Menlo Park, California Leading UI at the Recommendations Machine Learning and Feed & Stories Content Classification teams. I work with engineers and data scientists to build and improve cutting edge AI internal tools and infra to improve Facebook's content classifications, recommendations and user understanding. I'm currently responsible for the vision and project management of internal tools for the Recommendations ML Infra team, leading projects, frontend coding, and helping other engineers become proficient with React and Javascript. ### Frontend Software Engineer @ LinkedIn Jan 2016 – Jan 2018 | Sunnyvale, CA Helped re-build LinkedIn's Help Center (https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/). Helped design and fully developed the frontend for our new user identity verification service, using functional reactive Javascript. I streamlined the frontend of Linkedin's internal tool for ad management, significantly speeding up ad reviews, significantly impacting company revenue. Assumed leadership of all UI aspects of our internal tool for member support and management, coordinating with teams across the company. Recently, my work evolves around developing and expanding our Help Center User Forum. ### Web Developer @ LinkedIn Jan 2014 – Jan 2016 | Mountain View, CA Helping build the next generation responsive LinkedIn Help Center using the Play Framework, Java, Scala, JavaScript, functional reactive programming and Dust.js. Maintaining legacy code in PHP. ### Co-founder, full stack web developer and designer @ FingerStringPost.com Jan 2013 – Jan 2014 | Alameda, CA Co-founder, full stack developer, designer, and much more. Using Ember.js, Node.js, MongoDB, Javascript, HTML5, Twitter Bootstrap, CSS3. ### Co-founder, full stack web developer, designer and webmaster @ Aporrea.org Jan 2002 – Jan 2014 | Caracas, Venezuela / Iowa City, Iowa Co-founded the Venezuela-based Aporrea.org progressive media outlet. Designed and created site, content management system in PHP (before Wordpress or Drupal existed), MySQL database, set up the LAMP server, and served as first journalist / reporter. I left the site in 2004 and rejoined in 2010 launching a new version making it the 1st major media outlet in Latin America to use responsive web design. Aporrea is an Alexa Top 10.000 site (5,185 worldwide as of Jul 2018), and it is widely recognized as the main platform for political debate in Venezuela. It ranks #31 among all websites in the country, making it the 4th largest web media outlet locally, all with a staff of just 18 people. Recent work (2014) revolved around code optimization of our LAMP stack to save bandwidth and guarantee uptime during peak days of traffic, when the site must handle more than 1 million pageviews in a single day. I also designed and developed responsive advertisements using Adobe Edge, for small firms wishing to advertise on our site. ### Freelance Web Developer and Designer @ Freelance Jan 2012 – Jan 2013 | San Francisco Bay Area Freelancing. Enjoying my creative freedom, updating my programming and design skills. ### Consul General of Venezuela in San Francisco @ Ministerio del Poder Popular para Relaciones Exteriores Jan 2008 – Jan 2011 Top Diplomat representing the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in California, New Mexico, Utah, Washington, Idaho, Oregon, Colorado and Nevada. Developed relationship with progressive Hollywood figures such as Oliver Stone and Sean Penn to promote mutual understanding and improved relations between Venezuela and the US. I improved a customer service and passport processing system, I initially developed while stationed in Chicago (With PHP, Symfony framework and MySQL) resulting in dramatic reduction of wait time for consular services such as visa issuing, passport renewals, certification of document, issuance of birth certificates, etc. ### Consul General of Venezuela in Chicago @ Ministerio del Poder Popular para Relaciones Exteriores Jan 2004 – Jan 2008 Top Diplomat representing the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, North Dakota and South Dakota. Also developed a customer service and passport processing system (in PHP with the Symfony framework) greatly reducing wait time for customer services. Passport issuance was reduced from 3 hours to 20 minutes. I pioneered the adoption of encrypted Voice over IP in the Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Ministry, and personally installed Asterisk VOIP servers and phone networks in several diplomatic missions. ### Co-founder, full stack web developer and designer @ Venezuelanalysis.com Jan 2003 – Jan 2004 | Caracas, Venezuela / Iowa City, Iowa Venezuelanalysis is the main source of non-corporate, progressive news about Venezuela in English. I co-founded the organization along with Greg Wilpert. Designed and created site, content management system (before Wordpress or Drupal were popular), setup MySQL database and the LAMP server, and served as a journalist / reporter. ### Instructional Designer / Web Developer @ The University of Iowa Jan 2000 – Jan 2004 | Iowa City, Iowa Area Designed and developed patient simulation and management software using Visual C++, Borland C++ Builder and web based medical educational software in PHP and MySQL. Worked on the Iowa chapter of the Ralph Nader presidential campaign. ### Software Developer @ The University of Iowa Jan 1997 – Jan 2000 Designed and developed patient simulation and management software using Visual C++, Borland C++ Builder and Macromedia Authorware for the Office of Consultation and Research in Medical Education. ### Software Developer @ The University of Iowa Jan 1996 – Jan 1997 Designed and developed patient simulation and management software using Visual C++ and Macromedia Authorware for the College of Dentistry ### Programmer Analyst @ CENAMEC Jan 1992 – Jan 1994 | Caracas, Venezuela Developed educational games in Turbo Pascal as well as Instructional software in Visual Basic ## Education ### Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science University of Iowa ### Five semesters in Computer Science Universidad Central de Venezuela ### Two semesters in Civil Engineering Universidad Central de Venezuela ### High School in High School / Secundaria Miguel Antonio Caro ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/martinesanchez --- Source: https://flows.cv/martinsanchez JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/martinsanchez/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-12