π Hey, I’m Tim Hopper!
I’m an experienced machine learning platform engineer and Python developer. You can check out my resume at resume.tdhopper.com.
For over 10 years, I’ve helped companies solve business problems with machine learning in domains such as banking, cybersecurity, environmental science, and weather forecasting. I see my role as helping data scientists and researchers shorten feedback loops and spend time on their business problems (instead of fussing with cloud resources).
I’m also excited about developer productivity, especially in Python development. I am (slowly) working on an ebook on Python developer tooling and like to help teams use Python more effectively.
βπ» Writings:
tdhopper.com has been a place for my thoughts and writings since grad school. If you’re new here, start with these:
- Some Reflections on Being Turned Down for a Lot of Data Science Jobs
- How I Became a Data Scientist Despite Having Been a Math Major and A Subjective and Anecdotal FAQ on Becoming a Data Scientist
- Goodnight Zoom
- Entropy of a Discrete Probability Distribution
π₯οΈ Personal Projects:
I have an occasional podcast in which I talk to friends about things they’re interested in. You can find it in your podcast directory or at podcast.tdhopper.com.
Years ago, I created Should I Get a Phd? where I interviewed nine friends about whether a young, bright student should consider pursuing a PhD. This is the resource I wish I’d had before starting a PhD program, and it’s been useful to many.
Python Plotting for Exploratory Data Analysis is a Rosetta Stone for Python plotting libraries, and it also compares them to the GOAT of plotting libraries: ggplot.
I created Notes on Dirichlet Processes after working on a DARPA-funded open source project for developing Bayesian nonparametric models in Python. I did a lot of work to understand Bayesian nonparametrics and derive the Gibbs sampler for Hierarchical Dirichlet Processes. Notes on Dirichlet Processes shares what I learned for the benefit of others.
I enjoy wildlife and nature photography in my free time. dothopper photo is my gallary.
Free Disk Space is a little site I maintain with commands for freeing up disk space on your computer.
β¨οΈ Open Source:
I love to contribute to open source as I’m able. I’ve contributed libraries like cpython, datamicroscopes, Streamparse, Conda, lda, and Pandas.
π¨π»βπ» Social Media:
You can find me on Twitter and LinkedIn.
I love Twitter and have written some bangers over the years.
This tweet was cited in a Nature article.
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
— Tim Hopper (@tdhopper) November 3, 2015
Write a program to fish for him and you maintain it for a lifetime.
Here are some oldies that went viral in their day:
If you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it.
If you love it then you shoulda also endowed non-0 members with a multiplicative inverse.
— Tim Hopper (@tdhopper) November 22, 2013
Data science is the art of getting open source tools you've previously only read about on Twitter to work in your company's pipeline.
— Tim Hopper (@tdhopper) December 12, 2013
A developer is a device for turning StackOverflow code snippets into programs.
— Tim Hopper (@tdhopper) August 20, 2013
π£οΈ Talks:
I’ve been speaking at conferences and meetups for many years. I keep a list of my recorded talks here.
Here are a couple I’m particularly proud of: