David Tishkoff Chidester

About

I’m David Chidester, a computer enthusiast and professional software engineer who is passionate about Linux and open source software. I currently work as a CI engineer on the release team at a robo-taxi company called Zoox. In my previous roles, I worked at Stanford University and Thermo Fisher Scientific.

At Stanford IT I created DevOps automations for applications such as the Stanford iOS and Android mobile apps and Stanford's device compliance app which reduced build and deploy time by over 75%. At. Thermo Fisher I created an SDK to transfer data between Microsoft Sharepoint and AWS S3 so that business users could easily get their CSV files into the s3 data lake. I co-authored two AWS blog posts dealing with integration between Microsoft's tech stack and AWS

Outside of Zoox, I volunteer at The Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment (The MADE), a museum dedicated to preserving the history of video games through playable exhibition. I volunteer both as a web developer helping them maintain and expand the MADE’s website, and as an archivist backing up and maintaining the MADE’s collection and exhibits.

I'm an advocate for professionals on the autism spectrum and also a member of a career networking group for neurodiverse professionals called AASCEND. I have also advocated for and mentored young professionals with disabilities during my work at JVS.

Apart from computing, I have a passion for cooking and I post pictures of my culinary creations on my Instagram page and my PixelFed page. In my free time I enjoy gaming, ultimate frisbee, and spending time with my dog, Shoko.