Owen Brake

Who am I?

I am a recent graduate of the University of Waterloo with a B.Asc in Mechatronics Engineering.
My current areas of interest are:

You can contact me at: me@OwenBrake.com or obrake3@gmail.com
or on my LinkedIn: here
My public key is: here
My resume is: here

Work Experience [–]

Stealth Startup August 2024 - Present Head of Engineering San Francisco, CA

Neuralink Summer 2023 Firmware Intern Fremont, CA

Designed safety-critical, real-time C firmware for Neuralink implant and charger
Debugged critical bugs affecting HW as well as subtle compiler defects
Performed RF testing and qualification for communication systems as well as wireless power transfer

Parallel Systems Summer 2022, Winter 2023 Electrical Intern Los Angeles, CA

Designed HV PCBs in Altium and brought up RTOS firmware for said boards
Worked extensively on bringing up isoSPI communication and working with LTC68XX chips
Debugged critical HF and VHF communication systems including Gigabit Ethernet systems
Developed HITL test boards for validating production system boards

Tesla Fall 2021 Firmware Developer Palo Alto, CA

Developed highly-performant, resource constrained firmware for the Drive Inverter boards
Developed and deployed mission-critical features for millions of production vehicles
Developed firmware across multiple chip architectures to accommodate for 2020/2021 Semiconductor Shortage

Apple Winter 2021 Embedded Software Developer Remote

Ford Motor Company Summer 2020 Full Stack Developer Remote

Worked on system to process vehicle core dump files into easily readable, accessible and shareable online formats using GDB and Java
Rewrote permissions system to enable complex and nested conditions while maintaining performance on system with over 1 billion database records
Revamped vehicle file text editor to enable split screen, persistent session behaviour and numerous UX improvements in JS

Groupdesk Summer 2019 Full Stack Developer Toronto, ON

Developed CRUD services, using Angular to remove user dependence on technicians
Built Google Analytics system from the ground up, to better understand user behaviour and identify user priorities
Automated front end QA using Go, Docker and Chromedp to increase release efficiency and stability

Projects and Teams [–]

Waterloo Formula Electric September 2019 - Present Technical lead Waterloo, ON

Won 2nd in Class for 2021 Competition
Designed multi-stage precharge system to compensate for parasitic loads on HV bus
Implemented Vehicle Dynamics Algorithms like: Traction Control, Torque Vectoring, Endurance Mode for vehicle
Developed accurate state of charge algorithm using Coulomb Counting and Voltage Maps
In the progress of designing entire vehicle, modular HITL
Developed numerous features in embedded C for the various resource constrained ARM M0 and M7 boards
Built drivers to interact with the different vendor provided, proprietary devices: LTC6804/11/12, Sevcon Motors, LTC4110, etc.
Created Python templating system to autogenerate embedded C functions

Isidore December 2019 - June 2020 Creator Waterloo, ON

Developed custom programming language frontend using C++ and LLVM
Implemented various modern constructs like: Object Orientation, Heap allocation, Multifile Inclusion, FFI, Complex primitives, etc.
Experimented with various design patterns like Reference Counting, Garbage Collection, dynamic typing, JIT compilation

FLATTEN Flatten April 2020 - June 2020 Creator Mississauga, ON

Built performant and efficient MERN stack web system to study the spread of COVID-19 in Ontario
Recieved over 400,000 submissions through website monitoring geographical distribution of people with symptoms
Featured on numerous media outlets including: the CBC, Toronto Star, Global and Mail, and CTV

Lego 3D Printer November 2019 - December 2019 Creator Waterloo, ON

Designed and made 3D printer using LEGO Mindstorms for first year project
Implemented control algorithm to ensure fast and accurate movements as shown here

Self Driving Go Kart May 2019 - July 2019 Creator Mississauga, ON

Modified Go Kart to be drive-by-wire through a RC car radio tranceiver
Developed self driving car system using YOLO algorithm in Python and OpenCV as shown with this test footage here
Designed and manufactured compound gearbox using bicycle sprocket

Grade 12 Circuits Projects Spring 2019 Developer Mississauga, ON

Built audio amplifier circuit(as shown on the left) with 3.5mm line in as well as microphone input
Experimented with Op-Amps and Zener Diodes
Built Regulated DC Power Supply using Full Bridge Rectifier

PCHackers July 2018 - May 2019 Logistics Executive Mississauga, ON

Hosted and organized Canada's largest High School student run hackathon ever with 200+ participants
Negotiated with University of Toronto Mississauga officials to acquire as a venue
Acquired a verification and affiliation with MLH
Managed teams of volunteers to organize talks, distribute food and judge teams

The 6ix Robotics May 2018 - February 2019 Founder, Technical Lead Mississauga, ON

Founded private Vex robotics team and acquired large corporate sponsors like IBM and Deloitte
Designed and manufactured robot for competition
Developed firmware with complex autonomous system using PID as shown in the following clips: here and, here
Performed strongly in several competitions, winning multiple awards and going undefeated in a tournament. As shown on the instagram page.

Eve May 2018 Technical Lead Mississauga, ON

Developed at 8 hour hackathon
Built system using PHP and Twilio to search the internet using SMS
Users could access the weather, view wikipedia pages and much more by texting commands to a phone number

4659 Vex Robotics September 2016 - May 2018 President. Technical Lead Mississauga, ON

Led High School Vex Robotics team to World Championships
Designed and manufactured 6 robots per tournament for competition
Developed firmware with complex autonomous system using PID as shown in the following clip: here

Arcade Cabinet 2013 - 2014 Builder Mississauga, ON

Education [–]

University of Waterloo September 2019 - April 2024 Mechatronics Engineering Waterloo, ON

CGPA - 92.52%
Winner of the Alan Mulally Leadership in Engineering Scholarship for leadership and innovation in the automotive space.
MTE 320: Actuators and Power Electronics
MTE 262: Introduction to Microprocessors and Digital Logic
MTE 241: Introduction to Computer Structures & Real-Time Systems