Kevin Kowalski
A little bit about me. . .
Officially, I am a graduate of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. I have a concentration in human-centered computing because of my interests in the interactive design of software. Additionally, I have over a decade of IT experience in freelance and professional settings.
Casually, I am a technology enthusiast for all things software and hardware. Whether I'm building, tinkering, repairing, modding or anything in between, my goal is to make things that are fun, creative, and sometimes even unique.
Skills & Technologies
Programming Languages
Competent
Familiar
Exposure
Productivity Software
CentOS
Visual Studio Code
IntelliJ IDEA
NetBeans IDE
Processing
Microsoft Office
Visual Studio
GitHub
Arduino
Android Studio
RStudio
Jupyter Notebook
Application Designer
Postman
SQL Developer
Jira
Creative Tools
Paint.NET
Unity
SketchUp
DaVinci Resolve
Computer Hardware
Installation
Troubleshooting
System Reimaging
PCB Soldering
Education
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science
Magna Cum Laude, May 2020
Associate in Fine Arts, Science
May 2016
Work & Related Experience
Developer Associate
Evanston, IL | January 2023 - Present
As a software developer for Northwestern University, I primarily provided support for the PeopleSoft Financials software used in-house. Duties for this position included:
Retrofitted and migrated over 50 PeopleCode customizations onto Oracle PeopleSoft Financials across 2 major versions.
Practiced agile development via daily standups, Jira kanban board workflow tracking, and continuous product improvement.
Resolved dozens of support tickets submitted through TeamDynamix for production environment related issues.
Cooperated with business analysts to develop enhancement requests to existing products.
Coordinated various technical and functional teams for maintenances regarding a critical patch update and AutoSys upgrade.
IT Network Implementation Technician
Elk Grove Village, IL | March 2022 - April 2022
This position at Procom Enterprises revolved around commercial clientele. My main responsibilities included investigating and repairing workstation/server configurations. Additionally, I have also:
Created a PowerShell script to streamline computer system repairs and installations via automated setup.
Consulted clients with troubleshooting procedures and advised best usage practices of various technologies.
Traveled offsite to conduct maintenance of critical office and security systems at client infrastructures.
Research Programmer
Chicago, IL | July 2019 - August 2019
This internship experience involved working at the Advanced Cyberinfrastructure for Education and Research (ACER), an organization that operates as a part of my university. At ACER, I was given the unique opportunity to work with the onsite high-performance compute clusters in two ways:
Developed a JavaFX web application for comparing CPU versus GPU benchmarks run on the high-performance compute clusters.
Engaged in the daily monitoring and maintaining of high-performance compute clusters at the hardware level.
IT Administrative Assistant
Des Plaines, IL | June 2015 - May 2017
This was a student employment position at my community college in which I primarily acted as an immediate point of contact for students and professors. In this position, I was responsible for several tasks including but not limited to:
Troubleshooting common issues such as login errors, networking failures, and printer troubles.
Performing a weekly routine of both physical cleaning and software maintenance of the computer labs.
Assisted with hardware upgrades, networked system imaging, and installation of new software or updates.
F . A . Q .
Why am I a cartoon avatar?
I don't quite have a professionally shot photo of myself just yet and so I had to improvise using a cartoon avatar of myself.
However, I'm pretty sure I don't wear the same thing everyday! To fix this, I added some randomness to my avatar with my own little script! Go on, refresh the page to see the new me!
Avatars are generated using getavataaars.com and I have no affiliation with them.
Where do you see yourself in the future?
I do not know what the future may bring me but I do see myself working here in Chicago as a software developer or programmer.
I love this city as much as I love to create neat things with technology and so as long as I'm able to continue doing so, I would consider that a successful future.
What were some of your favorite courses?
I've really enjoyed my environmental sciences course about the earth; the history and features of our planet fascinate me to no end. I truly liked learning about the formation of different minerals, rocks, and whats not cool about volcanoes or earthquakes?
Additionally, I've learned a lot in my art courses. These courses introduced me to the Arduino platform for designing circuits and programming micro controllers. I had previously never built and programmed my own hardware so these courses were a very new and creative experience for me. I also got to try programming a basic version of mobile virtual reality, similar to Google Cardboard!
Lastly, I've enjoyed most of my computer science courses but there were a few that stood out to me. These courses were the less conceptual and theoretical courses but rather the more practical ones. In these courses, I was building applications that I could actually show or demo to someone who might otherwise not know much about programming.
How can I contact you?
I can be best and easily reached via email. I check emails very frequently and will usually get back to you within a few hours.
My email can be found on my résumé, the footer of this website, and right here: contact@kevinkowal.ski