Max Sklar

Machine Learning Engineer, Technology Strategist, and Podcaster

ABOUT ME

I am an experienced software engineer, data scientist, and product strategy leader. My goal is to research the fundamentals of the structure of information in order to extend humanity’s reach in computing. My past professional interests have ranged from building consumer applications to deploying statistical and machine learning systems. I also have experience in local search, recommendations, and causal modeling. Through my weekly podcast, I communicate the issues relevant to my field and interview industry leaders. Skills and Experience: Scala, Hadoop, Scalding, Python, Java, Numpy/Scipy, Bayesian Inference, Machine Learning, Causality, Type Theory, Programming Languages, Functional Programming, Rapid Prototyping, Luigi Data Pipelines, CI/CD, Location Data, Recommender Systems, MongoDb, MySql/Postgres.

WORK EXPERIENCE

Local Maximum Labs

Salem, NH — February 2022 - present

I am currently engaged in independent consulting and research which includes academic articles and open source software. My open source project newmap.ai is a new programming language that aims to simplify and generalize machine learning efforts which I’ve written from scratch. I also consult with several startups, which includes building Beta versions of server applications for consumer apps. Winware.ai (Founding Engineer)

Remote — March 2023 - September 2023

Working on a new company that provides data science and analytics to software companies based on usage patterns. Developed a Bayesian algorithm, research into automated content generation, and the maintaining the data pipeline.

Foursquare Labs (Machine Learning Engineer, Innovation Lab Advisor) New York, NY — May 2011 - Oct 2021

My work at Foursquare included the core recommendation algorithm, internationalization, sentiment analysis, natural language processing, tip ranking, statistical voting algorithms, and ad attribution. I built the first version of venue ratings in 2012. I wrote, tested, and deployed the algorithm. In 2013, I kicked off Foursquare’s NLP pipeline, and contributed to Foursquare’s taste graph. In 2015, I began work as the technical architect of Marsbot, a new place recommendation system with a natural language interface. In addition to the technical design, I worked closely with the product and executive teams to define where Marsbot fits in our app ecosystem and in the marketplace. In 2017 I formulated and developed Foursquare’s proprietary attribution algorithm, which builds a causality model to calculate an ad’s effectiveness at getting customers into real world locations. It launched in 2018. In addition to technical leadership, I was also involved in training the sales team. According to leading members of the Foursquare management team, this effort contributed to negotiations in Foursquare’s $150M acquisition of Placed in 2019. In 2019, I joined the Labs team headed by the former founder and CEO to build applications on top of Foursquare’s location technology. I built the server stack and provided product leadership for Marsbot for Airpods, which plays sounds at the precise moment users walk by certain locations. Yodle, Inc (Software Engineer)

New York, NY — February 2009 - February 2010

I worked on a (now defunct) local search application called Yodle Local. Wireless Generation (Software Engineer)

Brooklyn, NY — June 2006 - January 2009

Wireless Generation (now Amplify) is an education tech company. I built web and mobile applications

(which at the time meant the Palm Pilot) that automate student assessments. I was also involved in testing and usability.

INDUSTRY TALKS

I have presented at several conferences, and am a frequent guest speaker at meetups and university courses. I enjoy putting together presentations that are engaging and enlightening as well as targeted at specific audiences. Many of my talks are freely available online. PyMcCon: What Is Probability? A Philosophical Question With Practical Implications New York, NY — October 2020

I spoke to the PyMc Bayesian conference about how to approach the idea of probability and how that affects product and business decisions.

Building a Personal Assistant: An Industry Case Study Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA — September 2016 I was an industry speaker at the 10th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems. I shared my experiences with building Marsbot in the context of conversational recommender systems. Workshop on Urban Data Science

University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK — December 2015 A 20 minute talk about our analysis of language in Foursquare used across cultures and time as well as our core venue search technology.

Beyond Coding: The Importance and Best Practices of Technical Communication New York, NY — 2015 - present

A series of talks about workplace communication for students and professionals starting in technology careers.We were invited to repeat these talks at CUNY and Touro college. Machine Learning Meetup: Digging into the Dirichlet Distribution New York, NY — 2013

A one hour talk about my open source project to find optimal dirichlet distributions in count data. PUBLICATIONS

Articles

Sklar, Max. "Relative Probability on Finite Outcome Spaces: A Systematic Examination of its Axiomatization, Properties, and Applications." arXiv preprint arXiv:2212.14555 (2022). Sklar, Max. "Sampling Bias Correction for Supervised Machine Learning." arXiv preprint arXiv:2203.06239 (2022).

Sklar, Max. "Fast MLE Computation for the Dirichlet Multinomial." arXiv preprint arXiv:1405.0099

(2014).

Patents

Sklar, Max, et al. "Visit Prediction." United States Patent Application 202********. 11 Dec. 2020. Moore, Justin, et al. "System and method for providing recommendations with a location-based service." U.S. Patent No. 9,183,504. 10 Nov. 2015. Conference Briefs

Yang, Stephanie and Max Sklar. "Detecting Trending Venues using Foursquare Data." RecSys Posters. 2016.

Sklar, Max, and Kristian J. Concepcion. "Timely Tip Selection for Foursquare Recommendations." RecSys Posters. 2014.

Sklar, Max, Blake Shaw, and Andrew Hogue. "Recommending interesting events in real-time with foursquare check-ins." Proceedings of the sixth ACM conference on Recommender systems. ACM, 2012.

Other Projects

Podcast Host, The Local Maximum

Brooklyn, NY — February 2018 - present

I host and produce a weekly podcast called the Local Maximum where I cover a wide variety of topics including tutorials on probability and mathematics, to discussions of current events in software and tech, as well as important emerging technology. I interview a variety of people who are either important engineers, creators, and entrepreneurs, or more generally have something interesting to say about the topics on the show.

Yale Alumni Service Corps Advisory Board Member

New Haven, CT — May 2013 - May 2019

We travel to underserved communities around the world, and work to solve problems and promote cross-cultural awareness. In Nicaragua in 2014, I served as the leader of the business development team where we worked with small businesses in a rural community to develop plans to increase their profitability. As a board member, I worked on problems such as how we should design our trips to both have the most impact on the target community and for Yale. Yale Alumni Service Corps Trip Leader

Laughlin, NV — October 2017

In 2017, I led a group of 50 volunteers to the Fort Mojave Indian Reservation. There, the group was divided into several teams that provided job skills and training, educational instruction, library organization, and construction of a sun shelter and picnic area. The trip also included cultural activities including the Fort Mojave Indian Day Parade. My duties included the initial contact with the tribal administration, going on an advanced trip in 2016, planning the groups and schedules, organizing people into groups with leaders, working with each group leader to create a plan, fielding questions from participants, making announcements, ensuring cultural compatibility between participants and the community, facilitating the teams on site, some transportation, and generally being the group figurehead. EDUCATION

New York University, New York, NY

Master of Science in Information Systems — September 2009 - May 2011 Yale University, New Haven, CT

Bachelor of Science in Computer Science — September 2002 - May 2006

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