A brief encounter with a coder, gamer, and Pokemon card collector

Joshua’s work screams ‘Impact’

I currently work on Ascendion AVA, a platform that uses AI ML to help clients. I have a passion for coding efficiently and creating innovative solutions to problems. This where being a jack of all trades pays off. I can perform various tasks, such as developing UIs, front and back ends, and DevOps work. It was incredibly satisfying and fun working on various modules of Ascendion’s AVA.

Most of my work contributed to the efficient performance of these modules. Some of the notable ones are –

1. I created a PDF library that can do lots of things like adding paragraphs, banners, and combining different PDF
   pages. We can save these PDFs on Amazon’s S3 buckets or AZURE’s Blob Storage.
2. Set up a system that uses the JSch library to automatically access an AZURE Virtual Machine using Secure Shell
   (SSH). This helped us save important data about our work.
3. Made the AZURE cloud cost scanning in the ICE Platform faster by 91%. Also, added a feature that lets us rescan previous days easily. Previously within the ICE cost usage there was an Algorithm that was limited to 1 minute per execution because of the rate at which you can send API requests to Azure. Modifying and optimizing the Algorithm brought that down to about 5 seconds. This brought the extraction times down from about 3 hours per resource group to 14 minutes.
4. Changed Flask APIs in the IAF platform to Java SpringBoot REST APIs. This made database operations 20% faster. By using Java and Springboot’s Hibernate ORM instead of Python’s Flask APIs ORM. The switch to a more low-level language ‘Java’ from ‘Python’ which is an interpreted high-level language, allows for dealing with copious amounts of data in a faster and efficient way, allowing scans to complete more quickly.
5. Made an API for AVA’s Evaluation platform to grade user feedback.
6. Improved the IAF and ITA AVA platforms and did tests to make sure our code was good.
7. Created a service that uses a Readability REST API and the Jsoup Library to figure out how hard it is to read a website.
8. Managed Kubernetes helm charts for lots of big platforms.

What makes my job spicy?

One of the challenges I face at work is researching unfamiliar topics. This includes finding solutions for cloud-based analytics technologies and processing data using various algorithms to stay ahead of the game. I often turn to resources like Stack Overflow to gather information before beginning the development and implementing solutions for customer issues.

Additionally, locating information on Azure APIs can be difficult, as there is limited information available for most of the DevOps tasks we undertake. My main challenge is piecing together all the necessary information to make everything work seamlessly.

While I conduct most of my research alone, I do seek assistance from Krishnendu and Jeffrey when necessary. Jeffrey is my go-to for DevOps, like Docker and Kubernetes. Krishnendu is my Java expert. They’re like mentors, guiding me when I’m stuck or facing problems in solving issues and implementing services.

Why Ascendion and I are a match

At Ascendion, we all feel like a big family because they genuinely care about their employees. Working remotely provides me with a good work-life balance, as it allows me to pursue my interests outside of work. As my introduction mentions, I am particularly interested in gaming, and during my free time, I am actively working towards my goal of becoming a game developer. I am currently developing my own MMO using C++, C#, and Unity, and I am excited to see my creation come to life.

Join us at Ascendion where we believe in overcoming obstacles and transforming them into victories. Experience the power of Ascendion for yourself and take your personal and professional growth to new heights.

Check out the open roles and apply with us.