About George Leslie-Waksman

George Leslie-Waksman portrait

Basic Info

  • Birthday: April 3rd
  • Hometown: Concord, MA, USA
  • Current Region: SF Bay Area, CA, USA
  • Favorite Number: 3
  • Favorite Color: Blue

Who am I?

Just to get out of the gate, let's set aside the epistemological question and work from an assumption grounded in some form of realism[1].

[1] I've studied enough philosophy to know that assuming realism is not a particularly good assumption to make. However, I've also lived in the real world enough to know that I need to employ a certain degree of pragmatism if I ever hope to get anything done.

I'm a software engineer in the San Francisco Bay Area. My software contributions are mostly low profile or, perhaps sadly, mostly in the closed source corporate world. These days it would probably be best to describe myself as a "data engineer"[2], though I've worked at just about every level of the stack.

[2] I often prefer to avoid the term "data engineer" because I feel it is often conflated with the concept of a DBA or a hands-off software "architect" role. Personally, I view a data engineer as just another hands-on software engineer that happens to spend more time dealing with data and backend data management than anything else.

Long ago, I graduated from MIT with a degree in Materials Science and Engineering (course 3 to fellow alums). During my time at MIT, I had a pretty strong focus on structural materials and computer simulations of material behavior. Subsequent to graduating, I spent a number of years[3] taking increasingly software-focused jobs but always trying to keep my focus on math, science, or the like.

[3] Along the way to accepting that I was a software engineer, I took a brief detour to law school. I only made it through about three quarters of a year before I decided it wasn't for me. As such, I feel it's really more of a footnote issue than a body content matter.

I spent a number of years at a (now defunct) company called Archimedes, Inc. writing software and simulating clinical trials. During that time, I managed to develop a passion for healthcare technology. I've come and gone from the healthcare technology field a few times[4].

[4] There are a lot of startups trying to operate in the healthcare technology space that do not have viable business models. A lot of the companies think they have viable business models but are wrong, very, very wrong.

Eventually, I ended up at Google as a Datacenter Software Engineer and couldn't really keep up the illusion that I was a scientist that wrote software. It's for the best really, I like the practicality of engineering. Working at Google was an enlightening experience but, ultimately, there is a ceiling on the interest I can muster for tracking networking equipment parts in a datacenter.

As of now, I am back in the rich data world of healthcare, working for Clover Health, a startup health insurance company, that also happens to be a technology company. We are trying to fix healthcare for old people by bringing 21st century technology to the data, operations, and managed care. It's hard, but I would love if we could do even a little something to dent the massive problem that is modern healthcare.

If you want more professional details, there's something close enough to my résumé available through LinkedIn: George Leslie-Waksman . If you happen to want a proper résumé or other details, you'll have to email me.

Non-professionally, I have a wife and daughter, both of whom I love to a degree, the expression of which exceeds my writing skills.

I am an avid player of Magic: the Gathering and many boardgames.

I also fancy myself an amateur mixologist of middling skill.

Contact

The best way to contact me is by email: waksman (at) this domain

Elsewhere Online

I am active, to varying degrees[5], on a number of online services:

[5] My Internet "social" activity is generally pretty low everywhere other than GitHub and reddit.