Aaron Barlev

Career

CodeConda

I left Apple to begin my entrepreneurship journey and founded CodeConda to build a portfolio of profitable SaaS products. This includes PhotoTag.ai, the leading image keywording software for stock photographers, which has tagged over 7 million images and grown to over 15k users.

Working remotely from Moltrasio, Italy

Apple

I took the leap into consumer-facing technology with my work on the Apple Watch. I was responsible for the software that powers many of the health features used by millions of people around the world every day. Specifically, I was the owner of the wrist detection and digital crown software. Additionally, I made significant contributions to a wide range of other health features, including the ECG, blood oxygen, and heart rate sensing capabilities. Outside of my time working on the Apple Watch, I volunteered as a Project Manager for the Apple Jewish Association.

Apple Park on a foggy Bay Area morning

AeroVironment

In 2019, AeroVironment established the Innovation Center of New England just outside of Boston, MA. This was the company's first engineering facility outside of California. I had interned for AV in 2017 and was intrigued by the cutting-edge work being planned for the east coast office. I joined as one of the first 10 engineers. We were a team brought together to create the next generation of small surveillance VTOL aircraft for the world's militaries. Soon after joining, I was spearheading the development of the driver software for the vehicle's sensor suite. In the following years at the company, I led the design and implementation of the obstacle avoidance hardware and software and developed the EO camera software pipeline.

On a hike near AV HQ in Simi Valley, CA

Intelligent Automation

I joined Intelligent Automation as a member of a team that pursued R&D grants from the DoD in the form of SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) programs. I was most involved in an effort to apply swarm robotics technology on the battlefield where I designed and wrote control software for a UAV-based autonomous swarm formation. As a proof of concept, I successfully demonstrated this software using a handful of six-wheeled ground-based robots. The vehicles were powered by the Linux-based NVIDIA Jetson TX2 and an ultra-wideband indoor positioning system.

Programming a ground robot at IAI offices in Rockville, MD

Projects

Biezunski.com

Established a website to immortalize the life of Shlomo Biezunski. Shlomo was an incredible man who lived through the Holocaust and went on to lead an extraordinary life. The memorial website includes Shlomo's two-hour Holocaust testimony interview from 1988, a detailed historical account compiled by Shlomo's grandson, and numerous other impactful photos of Shlomo's experiences.

Self-Driving Pacerbot

Created an autonomous vision-guided robot for pacing track athletes. Utilized a Raspberry Pi computer for image processing with Python and OpenCV. Employed Atmel microcontrollers for low-level control with C++ and Arduino. Fabricated necessary structures using Computer Aided Design with Autodesk Inventor.

Android Application Development

Independently developed and published multiple mental math training applications for Android. The final iteration consisted of a timed level system, with unlockable achievements to motivate progress. Applied numerous Java concepts within the projects, including: storage of key-value pairs for later recall of user data, usage of lambda expressions, implementation of a Runnable interface for use within a thread, usage of a model-view-controller paradigm, and event-driven programming.

Kivu

Built a web application to allow hikers in U.S. National Parks to connect with other hikers and gather up-to-date park information. Wrote frontend in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and backend in Python. Built out website hosting using Heroku. Designed a database using MySQL and AWS RDS. Developed a salting and hashing algorithm to encrypt user passwords. Implemented SQL injection protection logic. Built out automated group chat creation using the GroupMe API. Added user verification using text messaging and reCAPTCHA. Integrated payment processing with PayPal.

Education

University of Maryland, A. James Clark School of Engineering

Bachelor of Science
Major: Mechanical Engineering
Minor: Computer Science
GPA: 3.65/4.0

Holmdel High School

High School Diploma
GPA: 4.31/5.0
ACT: 34/36

Organizations

Awards

Interests

Apart from my technical interests, I'm also an avid traveler. There are only a handful of U.S. states I haven't visited and I travel abroad at every opportunity. I like to stay active and enjoy exploring nearby trails on the weekends. During my time at the University of Maryland, I was a distance runner on the Track & Field team, where I competed in the 1500 and 3000 Steeplechase. Since retiring from Track & Field, I've started training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Music City Challenge - February 9th, 2019
I ran a personal best time of 4:12.81 for the mile in this race.

Jiu Jitsu World League Golden State IV - April 30th, 2022
This was my first jiu-jitsu competition.