# Samson Gama https://samsongama.com/ ## Site Description Personal Portfolio and Technical Blog of Samson Gama. ## Context & Skills (Internal Knowledge) ## Key Pages - [About](https://samsongama.com/about/) Senior Software Engineer passionate about innovation, perfection, and pushing technological boundaries - [Resume](https://samsongama.com/resume/) Senior Software Engineer with expertise in backend systems, machine learning, and DevOps ## Portfolio Projects - [Call of Duty: Black Ops 7](https://samsongama.com/portfolio/call-of-duty-bo7/) Backend engineering and scaling of Black Ops 7. Stack: backend, distributed-systems, high-scale, gaming, sre - [Call of Duty: Black Ops 6](https://samsongama.com/portfolio/call-of-duty-bo6/) Backend engineering and scaling support for the global launch of Black Ops 6. Stack: backend, distributed-systems, high-scale, gaming, sre - [Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III](https://samsongama.com/portfolio/call-of-duty-mw3/) Backend engineering and scaling support for the global launch of Modern Warfare III. Stack: backend, distributed-systems, high-scale, gaming, sre - [Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0](https://samsongama.com/portfolio/call-of-duty-wz2/) Backend engineering for the massive battle royale sequel, managing high-throughput player data and matchmaking services. Stack: backend, distributed-systems, high-scale, gaming, sre - [Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II](https://samsongama.com/portfolio/call-of-duty-mw2/) Backend engineering and scaling support for the record-breaking global launch of Modern Warfare II. Stack: backend, distributed-systems, high-scale, gaming, sre - [Call of Duty: Vanguard](https://samsongama.com/portfolio/call-of-duty-vanguard/) Backend engineering and scaling support for the global launch of Call of Duty: Vanguard, ensuring seamless multiplayer connectivity. Stack: backend, distributed-systems, high-scale, gaming, sre - [Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War](https://samsongama.com/portfolio/call-of-duty-bo5/) Backend engineering and scaling support for the global launch of Black Ops Cold War, supporting millions of concurrent users on Day 1. Stack: backend, distributed-systems, high-scale, gaming, sre - [Cybersecurity Leadership: Mastercard CTF Team](https://samsongama.com/portfolio/insiderthreats/) Founded and led the ‘Insider Threats’ Capture The Flag team at Mastercard Vancouver, conducting workshops on binary exploitation and forensics. Stack: cybersecurity, ctf, leadership, reverse-engineering, digital-forensics, education - [Knowledge Base: CTF Writeups](https://samsongama.com/portfolio/ctfsamsongamacom/) A curated collection of technical writeups detailing solutions for complex Capture The Flag challenges, focusing on binary exploitation and cryptography. Stack: cybersecurity, technical-writing, tutorial, education, reverse-engineering - [Competition: Trend Micro CTF Finalist](https://samsongama.com/portfolio/trendmicroctf2019/) Ranked 12th globally (top 1.5%) at the Trend Micro CTF Finals in Tokyo, representing Canada with team Maple Bacon. Stack: cybersecurity, ctf, competition, reverse-engineering, tokyo - [Innovation: Dynamic Biometrics (Verifeye)](https://samsongama.com/portfolio/mastercard-verifeye/) Multi-factor authentication concept using facial recognition and sentiment analysis to verify identity and gauge user friction during transactions. Stack: biometrics, computer-vision, security, innovation, machine-learning - [FinTech: Algorithmic Trading Bot](https://samsongama.com/portfolio/hft-bot/) High-frequency crypto trading system achieving consistent returns via ML-driven pattern matching, built on a Go/InfluxDB microservices architecture. Stack: fintech, algorithmic-trading, golang, machine-learning, time-series-db, microservices, influxdb - [High-Scale Backend: Absolute Data Pipeline](https://samsongama.com/portfolio/absolute/) Re-engineered a massive data ingestion pipeline using Golang and Kubernetes, increasing throughput by 2000% while reducing memory footprint by 90%. Stack: backend, golang, kubernetes, distributed-systems, big-data, optimization - [Capstone: Contextual Ad Targeting Engine](https://samsongama.com/portfolio/ubc-capstone/) Machine Learning SaaS platform capable of inferring context (time, location, sentiment) from text/images to optimize ad targeting. Stack: machine-learning, nlp, tensorflow, kubernetes, microservices, python - [Mobile Development: Kudolife Health App](https://samsongama.com/portfolio/kudolife/) Full-stack development for a cross-platform health tracking app, achieving a 50% reduction in API response times through backend optimization. Stack: mobile-app, ios, android, full-stack, api-optimization, php, sql - [Internship: OpenStack Virtual Router Plugin](https://samsongama.com/portfolio/ericsson-openstack/) Developed a Neutron SDN plugin for managing virtual Ericsson routers, streamlining network configuration in cloud environments. Stack: cloud-infrastructure, openstack, python, networking, sdn, docker - [Computer Vision: Kinect SVM Hand Tracking](https://samsongama.com/portfolio/kinect-svm/) Real-time hand gesture recognition system using Support Vector Machines and Kinect depth data to control OS tasks at 30FPS. Stack: computer-vision, machine-learning, cpp, kinect, opencv, svm - [Infrastructure: Endless-Sphere Migration](https://samsongama.com/portfolio/endless-sphere/) Modernized reliability for the world’s largest electric vehicle hobbyist forum by migrating from legacy VPS to a scalable AWS architecture. Stack: devops, aws, linux, system-administration, phpbb, sql - [Mobile App: Boardcast for Android](https://samsongama.com/portfolio/boardcast/) Award-winning peer-to-peer collaborative whiteboarding app featuring Wi-Fi Direct mesh networking, hardware-accelerated drawing, and whiteboard digitization. Stack: mobile-app, android, java, networking, computer-vision - [FPGA Embedded System: UberNios](https://samsongama.com/portfolio/ubernios/) A custom 2D arcade game built in C on a NIOS II soft-core processor, running on an Altera DE2 FPGA with hardware-accelerated graphics and audio. Stack: embedded-systems, fpga, c, vhdl, verilog, assembly - [Hackathon: FleetAware](https://samsongama.com/portfolio/fleetaware/) Award-winning Hackathon project utilizing the Mojio API to optimize logistics and routing for large-scale vehicle fleets. Stack: web-development, hackathon, logistics, iot, apis, php, javascript - [Custom EV: High-Performance Electric Bicycle](https://samsongama.com/portfolio/electric-bicycle/) Designed and built a custom electric mountain bike featuring regenerative braking, bluetooth telemetry, and matched componentry. Stack: electric-vehicles, hardware, engineering, clean-tech - [Data Visualization: EV Trip Analyzer](https://samsongama.com/portfolio/ev-trip-analyzer/) Full-stack web application for analyzing telemetry data from Electric Vehicles, visualizing power consumption, speed, and efficiency. Stack: web-development, data-visualization, clean-tech, javascript, google-maps-api - [Web App: Bicycle Spoke Calculator](https://samsongama.com/portfolio/spoke-calculator/) Visual tool for calculating spoke lengths and visualizing wheel lacing patterns using JSGL. Stack: web-development, visualization, javascript, mathematics - [Robotics: Electromagnetic Tetherbot](https://samsongama.com/portfolio/electromagnetic-tetherbot/) Built an autonomous robot capable of tracking electromagnetic signals, controlled via a custom Android application. Stack: robotics, embedded-c, android, control-systems, signal-processing - [Biomedical Engineering: Photoelectric Heart Rate Monitor](https://samsongama.com/portfolio/heart-rate-monitor/) Designed and built a microcontroller-based photoplethysmogram (PPG) sensor to calculate heart rate from blood flow variations. Stack: biomedical, embedded-systems, signal-processing, c-programming, hardware - [Embedded Systems: Reflow Oven Controller](https://samsongama.com/portfolio/over-controller/) Designed an assembly-based PID controller for a reflow soldering oven, featuring an Android interface and Java-based telemetry logging. Stack: embedded-systems, assembly, fpga, java, android, control-systems - [Web Design: Veazey Scholarship Foundation](https://samsongama.com/portfolio/veazey-scholars/) Designed and developed the official website for the Veazey Scholarship Foundation, sponsored by Borden Ladner Gervais LLP. Stack: web-design, frontend, freelance - [Educational Tech: iPad Deployment Initiative](https://samsongama.com/portfolio/er-ipad-project/) Consulting and technical implementation for a 1:1 iPad deployment program at Elsie Roy Elementary (2010-2013). Stack: ed-tech, ios-deployment, infrastructure, networking, consulting - [King George Secondary Portal](https://samsongama.com/portfolio/kg-website/) Development and administration of a high school community portal, including live-streaming infrastructure for varsity sports. Stack: web-development, streaming, it-administration, community - [Visual Effects & Compositing: Green Screen Projects](https://samsongama.com/portfolio/green-screen/) Early explorations in video production and visual effects using Chroma Keying technology and Adobe After Effects. Stack: video-production, visual-effects, adobe-after-effects, compositing ## Technical Blog Posts - [Continuous Integration & Deployment: A Practical Introduction](https://samsongama.com/posts/cicd/) Why you should automate everything early - from manual deployment hell to fully automated CI/CD pipelines with Docker and Kubernetes. - [Notifications: Smart Alerting Strategy](https://samsongama.com/posts/notifications/) Smart alerting systems with Slack integration - from trading bot alerts to SaaS user events, stay informed without being overwhelmed. - [Passive Infrastructure Monitoring with Prometheus](https://samsongama.com/posts/monitoring/) Essential infrastructure monitoring - track system health, prevent downtime, and get alerts before issues become critical. - [Millions of Inserts: The Ideal Database?](https://samsongama.com/posts/insertingdata/) A performance comparison of MongoDB, PostgreSQL, and InfluxDB for high-frequency trading data, handling millions of inserts per day. - [Ansible, why didn't I use this sooner](https://samsongama.com/posts/ansible/) Automation that saved days of manual server setup time - from 1 hour manual configuration to 2 minutes automated deployment - [My Over-Engineered Serverless & Self-Hosted Stack](https://samsongama.com/posts/website-stack/) Why have a simple website when you can have a complex one? A deep dive into the CI/CD pipeline, serverless AI integration, and zero-trust self-hosted analytics stack that powers samsongama.com. - [Building a Serverless AI Chatbot for My Static Portfolio](https://samsongama.com/posts/ai-chat/) How I added a ‘Speak with AI’ feature to this static website using Cloudflare’s serverless ecosystem without spending a dime on hosting. - [Privacy-First Analytics: Self-Hosting Umami with Cloudflare Tunnels](https://samsongama.com/posts/self-hosted-analytics/) A technical guide to deploying Umami Analytics using Docker Compose and Cloudflare Tunnels to protect your server’s IP while keeping your website fast and GDPR compliant. - [Zeit - Functions as a Service](https://samsongama.com/posts/zeit/) Update 2020: Zeit has rebranded to Vercel. The now command and zeit.co URLs referenced below correspond to the platform’s state in 2019.