Ben Hekster

Ben Hekster has a diverse and extensive work experience in the software engineering field. Ben started their career in 1994 as a Software Engineer at Plastronics Interactive Multimedia, where they led multimedia projects and developed Macintosh versions of multimedia titles.

In 1998, they joined ReleaseNow.com as a Senior Software Engineer and later became the team lead for Electronic Software Distribution and trial software. Ben also coordinated various departments and developed production tools.

From 2001 to 2002, Ben worked as a Software Engineer at Minds and Technologies, specializing in developing ActiveX controls for Internet Explorer browser bar for audio and video streaming.

In 2003, Ben took on the role of Manager of Software Engineering at CaseCentral, leading the design and implementation of a document base normalization service. Ben successfully managed a small team and created a high-reliability and high-performance cross-platform service.

Starting from 2005, Ben worked as a Principal Software Engineer at SS8 Networks, where they were responsible for the development of electronic surveillance and lawful interception products. Ben served as the project architect and team lead, overseeing the off-shore outsourcing of development.

In 2009, Ben joined DigitalGlobe, Inc. as a Senior Software Engineer/Lead. Ben led the development of a large-volume geospatial image processing system using C++ and Java. Ben also implemented clustering under Moab/TORQUE and played a key role in the conversion to an autotools-based build.

From 2013 to 2017, Ben worked as a Principal Software Engineer/Lead at BlueKai/Oracle, where they acted as a team lead and designer/contributor of a low-latency cluster-distributed graph database. Ben also implemented a front-end UI using a custom nginx module.

Most recently, in 2017, Ben joined FogHorn Systems, Inc as a Principal Staff Engineer. Ben contributed to the maintenance and development of the company's industrial internet-of-things (IIoT) offering and eventually took on team leadership and management responsibilities.

In 2022, Ben Hekster joined Relyance AI as a Software Architect, utilizing their experience and skills to contribute to the company's projects.

Ben Hekster attended the University of Twente from 1986 to 1992, where they obtained a MSEE degree. Their field of study focused on object-based languages and compilation, as well as object-based compilers.