Sebastian Everett Eriksson
Software engineer and teacher. Learns quickly. Thinks data-oriented and likes minimalism.
sebastian.vasser@gmail.com
+4670 754 70 12
Gothenburg, Sweden
Languages: Swedish, English, Spanish
Sample skills
- PHP, .NET, SQL
- C, Linux kernel, POSIX shell
- Relational database design and maintenace
- Software architecture
Full story at https://niwo.uk
Story
I was 11 years old when I borrowed some programming books from my family. Since then I have been on a nonstop adventure of tinkering and problem solving.
My first published program was a multiplication table exercise I made in C++ which I shared with my middle school classmates on a CD.
In high school I dabbled in game development, mainly in Java. At the end of high school I got my first job as a software developer for a professor at Karolinska Institutet, which ended when I started my studies at Chalmers University of Technology.
At university I made websites in Wordpress, Joomla and Drupal for various nonprofit organisations, including Chalmers Students for Sustainability, Intize, and Cykelköket Göteborg. I also made an experimental tool for generating teaching materials which was used briefly at a high school.
After university I made a digital online multiplayer version of the card game Klimatkoll for use in education. It continued to be used in classroom settings, but updates were discontinued when I got a job contract.
While making digital Klimatkoll I was also hired to hold a programming course at Digidem Lab for a group of climate activists, and started volunteering with the IT systems of K103 Gothenburg Student Radio.
I worked for 5 years at CheckWatt, a (then) startup company that sold renewable energy services with a focus on solar. After making a webshop frontend in 2 months I gradually moved on to backend work, with a couple of months as team lead. As the team grew I met experienced software engineers who changed entirely the way I work.
From more experienced colleagues I learned to work in an organisation under pressure, including work-life balance, how to navigate office politics, and how to propose evidence-based solutions.
One colleague showed me data-oriented design, shell languages, and parsing expression grammar (PEG) which would inspire my later work.
In November 2024 I resigned from CheckWatt. Since then I have been researching how to make low maintenance computer systems with a goal to make websites for communities I care about.
Preferred systems
Whatever solves the problem with the least amount suffering and most amount of fun.
In my case this tends to be C+PEG+Shell+Linux and a refreshing walk.
Idealism increases in direct proportion to one's distance from the problem.
— John Galsworthy
Employment and education
CheckWatt
Main roles: Fullstack developer, software architect
Renewable energy services company that grew from less than 10 employees to over 50 in the 5 years I worked.
Sample tasks:
- UX design and JavaScript frontend development
- REST API development in .NET and PHP
- Billion row SQL database design, development and maintenance
- Migrations across servers, MySQL versions
Kortspelet Klimatkoll
Made a digital online multiplayer version of the card game Klimatkoll, used to teach and facilitate discussions on carbon footprint.
Digidem Lab
Taught computer technology at Digidem Lab, a non-profit initiative to build participatory democracy.
Intize
Worked at the Intize office as a mentorship coordinator. Intize is a student organisation that provides mentorships in mathematics.
Chalmers University of Technology
M.Sc. in Engineering, M.Sc. in Teaching
Includes a certificate to teach in Swedish schools (Ämneslärare).
Karolinska Institutet
At the end of high school I developed a tool using PHP+MySQL to help doctors communicate instructions to their patients. Discontinued because of university studies.
Projects and volunteering
Research into low-maintenance websites
I helped a friend fix a 20 second load time on a wordpress website. This sparked an aspiration to remove as much unnecessary complexity from websites and website builders as possible.
Some applied technologies:
- C and Linux kernel
- Language development using Parsing Expression Grammar (PEG)
- Relational database design and table operations: sort, join, group by, etc
- Shell languages
- Web: TCP/IP, HTTP, REST, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, HTMX
K103 Student Radio
K103 run live radio and podcasts in a studio. I voluntarily develop and maintain their website and work as a system administrator for their internal network of computers.
Their website features a content management system with user account management and a web radio. The current version runs on PHP+MySQL and has proven very reliable, with no reported bugs for a year of active usage.
I am currently applying my research on the next website iteration.
Crowd Math
Digital tool for creating, using, and sharing teaching materials. Made in cooperation with a maths teacher who used it in lessons.
Mentor in mathematics
I taught mathematics to high school students almost throughout my time at university through the nonprofit organisations Intize and Mattecentrum.
Cykelköket Göteborg: Bicycle repair
I volunteered at a "bike kitchen", a free bicycle repair shop that teaches people how to repair bicycles.
This CV was joyfully hand-made without AI support