Meet the Archive-It team’s newest engineers!
December 9th, 2020
by the Archive-It team
Archive-It’s team is growing for the second time in 2020, with some valuable additions to our Engineering talent pool. Our new teammates have experience working in various aspects of operations and development for different kinds of organizations, from academic institutes to Bay Area startups, and even the Internet Archive’s own Open Library. Please join us in welcoming Alex, Tabish, and Pravin to the team!
Left to right: Engineering Manager Alex (and special guest star Felix!) Dempsey, Software Engineer Tabish Shaikh, and Web Applications Engineer Pravin Visakan
Alex Dempsey, Engineering Manager, San Francisco, CA.
Alex comes to Archive-It from Dynata, where he was a Director of Engineering. He brings over 13 years of Internet-based start-up experience, wearing just about every hat they make. He’s been a fan of the Internet Archive since reading a Wired magazine article covering the Wayback Machine in high school, and jumped on this opportunity to help build something enduring. Alex remembers his father, a Christian Scientist, teaching him society is built on intergenerational commitments. He finds it surreal that he will be working to preserve our culture and history for future generations at the Internet Archive’s headquarters building, a repurposed Christian Science church. He delights in being with his young family in his free time. But after his baby goes to bed he’s drawn back to his computer to learn everything he can to bring our present moment into the far future with Archive-It.
Tabish Shaikh, Software Engineer, Pune, India.
Tabish had contributed his talents to Internet Archive projects for over two and a half years prior to joining Archive-It, notably the Open Library’s Book Sponsorship Program. He held prestigious internships with the Google Summer of Code and the Open Library during that time, as well volunteering as a software engineer while completing his studies. Having graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, Jammu in 2020, he has since relocated back to his hometown in Pune, India, where he is currently based. In his free time Tabish plays guitar and bass guitar. Tabish is passionate about Open Source projects, free access to books, and preserving Social Media, especially Tweets.
Pravin Visakan, Web Applications Engineer, Los Angeles, CA.
Pravin comes to the Internet Archive from the Garrick Institute for the Risk Sciences at UCLA, where he was a full-stack developer. He is also a graduate of UCLA in Computer Science, with a minor in English. In his free time he enjoys reading Science Fiction, Fantasy and Philosophy. He enjoys the occasional hike through the chaparrals of the Simi Valley in the LA area, where he grew up and is currently based. He looks forward to learning, revamping, and rewriting systems at Archive-It, and is passionate about making computers work better for humans.